


Dress Me

by thespicyricey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Disorder, Crossdressing, Drama & Romance, Eating Disorders, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Terminal Illnesses, Weight Management
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 241,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespicyricey/pseuds/thespicyricey
Summary: Zitao never thought his mother's life would be so costly - and he certainly never thought the only job around that paid what he needed would require something like this.





	1. Chapter 1

“Open wide.”

Today’s lunch is a strawberry and flaxseed oatmeal with a bowl of boiled peas and a chopped pear, his mother’s favorite. She’s never been a huge fan of peas but Zitao doesn’t give her an option, because if Zitao needs to eat his vegetables, then so does she. 

His mother takes the mouthful with gratitude and beams up at him in pride, and it makes Zitao smile as he stirs her oatmeal.

“It’s a little sweet today,” she comments in her croaky, overly-tired voice, sepulchral in a way that is indicative of her physical state, as well, as she lays obligatorily in the cot, her pillow inclined at a specific twenty-five degrees, blanket pulled tight across her where Zitao has tucked her in.

_Stage-four ovarian cancer_ , her medical bedside tag reads. Zitao can usually not bear a single glance at it without drawing tears from the memories, but his mother is the strongest person that he knows, and he knows that she’s got a lot of fight left in her still. Although his mother can no longer come home with him to make him a homemade meal chock full of love for her only child, Zitao decided a long time ago to no longer shed tears for the inevitable, to not waste his misery in a place where his mother needs all of the support and laughter she could possibly handle.

“Is it too much?” He asks softly, genuinely concerned, yet - his mother simply shakes her head and gives him one of her delicate, tender little smiles.

“A little bit sweet is never a bad thing,” she recites slowly, surely, and Zitao prides her for her physical improvement over the last several weeks. When the cancer spreads within her and makes her weak, sometimes she struggles to formulate full sentences, enough so that Zitao can count them on one hand. It’s a good day, he decides, because his mother is talkative today. “Though, I’d tell them to add just a _dash_ of ginger and another spoonful of honey to build the robustness.”

“Did you sleep well last night, mother?” He asks gently as he carefully wipes the rim of her spoon on the lip of the bowl, leveling off another spoonful for her. She takes it, and he watches as her throat works as she swallows it. “I told the nurse to double your nightly morphine and double your sleeping pills.”

“She wouldn’t let me,” his mother tells him dejectedly. “She said they’re not allowed to give me more morphine, but she did give me the pills. I slept fine, a little bit restless from the pain but - I lived.”

The spoon clinks against the porcelain bowl as Zitao scoops another mouthful for her, and his eyes sink down from her face to her hands, veiny and highly sallow, the intravenous tube trailed into the flesh beneath her skin and up her wrist, and he hates to think about the fact that his mother will live the rest of her life plugged-in and wired. He knows that his mother’s spirit is far too free and too uncharted to subject her to eternal restraint. Zitao wishes from the very bottom of his heart that he could wish his mother’s illness away and wake up and have it all disappear. 

“I’m sorry,” he admits as he draws the spoon back from her small lips. “I’m sorry that I can’t help you more.”

“Zitao.”

“I’m sorry that I won’t be able to save you.”

“Zitao, stop it,” she scolds him gently, and she stretches her arm a few inches in the limited space she has due to the intravenous tube, and lays her palm warmly across his knee. “You and I both know that I don’t have much time left, and none of it will be your fault. You know that.”

Zitao sniffles, a pathetic little noise as he brings a slender hand up to his nose to rub, “But I could have prevented it from getting this far. I could have been more proactive, I could have - I don’t know, applied for an internship or something.”

“Everything that will happen,” his mother coos gently, the beginnings of a smile sloping her lips upward, “will happen for a reason, Zitao. I could never blame you for this. If our God wanted me to leave you in his hands, he must have done so with purpose, my flower.”

“Don’t leave me, mother,” Zitao whispers, and she sighs, exasperated on her last hope. “I’ll - I’ll let you know when it’s okay. When I’m ready.”

“Oh, Zitao,” she shakes her head and gives him a weak little grin. “Silly little nit. How can you think you can control fate like that? You have to learn to let go.”

“I can’t,” he admits shamefully, dropping the spoon back into the bowl with a tinny _clink_. “I don’t know anything else. I don’t - I don’t know how to accept loss like this, mother.”

“The easiest way to acceptance is forgiveness, followed by consolation,” she tells him, and Zitao notices how her vision has shifted into something more focused and formed as if it’s not a matter to be discussed. “The forgiveness comes when your heart accepts that it wasn’t caused by your human insolence when you learn to let your inhibitions go. The consolation comes after you’ve forgiven yourself for the pain you’ve felt, and you learn to embrace others who have felt pain to the same degree.” 

“What are you saying, mother?”

“You will learn,” she repeats. “You’re young, still, and life has been kind to you, my flower. When the time comes, you will know what to do.”

“Don’t say that, please,” he whispers in return. “I’m nothing without you, mother.”

She smiles this time and rubs her thumb into the meat of Zitao’s knee. “You are everything, Zitao, and I wish you could see that. You’re a beautiful photographer, a marvelous boy, and a son that Norse Gods would kill for. Besides, a man is only as good as his mother raised him to be.”

“But… I’m not even in college, mother,” he admits and hangs his head. “I’m going to be twenty-three and I don’t even have more than an associate’s degree in photography. I only make so much money per picture I sell, mother, it’s not enough to afford your treatments.”

“You could get a full-time job, Zitao,” she mentions, and Zitao rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me that smarmy look, young man.”

“I _had_ a full-time job, mother. Remember? I got fired because of my panic attacks when you were admitted to the hospital.”

His mother is silent for a few long moments, where she breathes into the tight swath of her sheets and takes her hand off of her son’s knee and lays it over her lap, and flutters her eyes shut as if she were falling asleep, but Zitao knows her by now to know she’s merely thinking in a restful state. His mother tires easily when her body is under as much stress as it is these days when her skin is patchy and latticed with lesions from the chemotherapy and her bare scalp has begun to wrinkle - Zitao can see the exhaustion deeper than just her skin, can see the tiredness her eyes hold. She’s on her last wit and it breaks his heart to think that she could be dead tomorrow.

“Have you thought about modeling photography, Zitao?” She asks after her period of silence. “You know, _professional_ photography where you shoot magazine covers and photograph at professional high-security events?”

“Mother, I don’t want to be a paparazzi.”

“Not a paparazzi, silly. Just a photographer. You have a degree, you could at least try. Besides, you have some kind of a portfolio for it, it’s not as though you don’t. Maybe start shooting people to see how well you do with it.”

Zitao sighs, however, and sets his mother’s food bowl off to the side where her tray is. She is eager as he hands her the pear and she takes it with her frail little hands, and he gives his mother the freedom to feed herself just for once. Whenever Zitao is not here, a nurse will feed her in his place. It saddens him, but this is the way of life. 

“Life is limited,” his mother tells him after biting into the soft fruit. “Do with it all that you can, my flower. Go out, live a little. Marry, have kids, donate to charity. Do only things that make you happy and always remember that no matter what it is, I will be proud of you, my flower.”

“Mother, you’re scaring me,” Zitao whispers shakily, but his mother merely shakes her head and hands him the body of the bruised fruit.

“Silly child, it is not my time yet. God will take me when he is ready, and I need you to be prepared for it, Zitao. One day you will grow old and your children will all become full-grown with grandchildren and you will need to prepare them for losing you, as well. Cherish what you have while you have it, Zitao.”

“Mother - ”

There’s a soft knock at the doorframe and Zitao jumps, startled, as he turns to the doorway to see the nurse padding in with her clipboard in her hand. “Good afternoon, Zitao,” she smiles at him and steps over to his mother’s intravenous bag, feeling the plastic bulge between her smooth fingers. “I apologize for sneaking up on you two unannounced but it is time for us to refill your IV, Ms. Huang. How was your lunch?”

“The oatmeal was nice today,” his mother says tenderly, and it makes him smile just a little bit. “Could you add a little bit more honey, next time? I like the robustness it gives the oats.”

“Of course, Ms. Huang,” the nurse giggles in her youthful tone as the closes the slot on the bag. “I’m glad you’re eating well. When was your last bowel movement?”

“Oh, this morning I believe, before my son got here.”

Zitao frowns and says, “Mother, you know you should wait for me to get here so I can help you to the restroom.”

“Shut your mouth, boy,” his mother smacks her lips and gives him a weak little shove. “When I have to go, I have to go. I’m not waiting for anybody.”

Then the nurse interrupts them by asking, “How much did you sleep, Ms. Huang?”

“Not a lot,” his mother admits, and the nurse sighs as she nods her head a little and steps over to the foot of the bed to mess with the small control panel, and begins to lower his mother’s pillow just a smidge. “Can I have a nap today, Lily?”

“You most certainly can, Ms. Huang,” the nurse says sweetly and Zitao realizes his time with his mother is beginning to wrap up for the afternoon. “Are you going to take your leave, Zitao?”

“Ah,” he startles as he stands and gathers his bag around his shoulders, and hands his mother’s food tray to the nurse for her to take, “probably, I - don’t want to make noise and wake her by accident. She needs her rest.”

The nurse - _Lily_ \- sighs, and shakes her head with a pretty smile gracing her pink lips, “You have such a nice son, Ms. Huang. So well-behaved.”

“Ah, he’s a wonder, isn’t he? He’s got a little mouth on him, though, be forewarned.” 

“ _Mother_!”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

He turns the key in the lock of his apartment front door and switches on the light, bare, cream-toned walls and drab carpet in dull mulberry greeting him, as he toes off his shoes and leaves them at the front door and drops his keys on the coffee table. Another day at the hospital means another day unsure of his next paycheck, which means another day unsure of his mother’s fate. 

He remembers the day she was diagnosed seven months ago - he had been at the restaurant that day with his best friend Luhan, and his mother had been with his father that day. He’d been in between rush hours, the drab hour of three in the afternoon uneventful and sleep-worthy. He’d been shooting the breeze with Luhan regarding unfair management when it came to their tips. Zitao had been telling him about the time he served two girls who seemed to be conversing intimately as though they were dating, and when they’d tipped Zitao for being courteous to the young couple, his manager had raised hell and said tips from gay people weren’t acceptable and Zitao had put his foot down in front of the young women and argued back. _They’re people_ , he had told the manager. _And you know what? I’m just like they are, so if you’re really not okay with having them in your establishment, then you might as well fire me because you hired a gay person._ The young women, unsurprisingly so, had begun to cry and thanked Zitao for his bravery and his manager had stormed off without a word, and Zitao had been allowed to keep both his job and his tip.

It had been when he was telling Luhan about the verbal tussle between the manager and the girls that the work telephone had rung, and Luhan had been the one to answer. After a few seconds, however, the phone had been passed to Zitao and the boy had nearly had a heart attack when the person on the other line introduced himself as _Doctor Kim Joonmyun, hello Zitao, I am here with your mother and your father and I would like for you to come down sometime, I have something very important to speak to you about regarding your mother’s medical condition._

Prior to his mother being admitted, she didn’t have a medical condition. She was always the picture of perfect health, all bright smiles and flourished cheeks. When he’d gotten to the hospital that day, to say that the looks on his mother’s and father’s faces were anything short of contrite would be an understatement. Doctor Kim, however, was startlingly chipper with him in a way that made his stomach twist, the friendliest bearer of bad news Zitao thinks he will ever see, and he’d given Zitao ample time to sit and breathe and say hello to his mother where she lay in a medical cot, physically and visually exhausted, and it broke Zitao’s heart to see her look so drained all of a sudden.

When he’d mustered up the strength to hear the prognosis, however, he’d completely shattered and doused the upper portion of his mother’s medical gown with his tears. 

_Although it is in stage three, the chance of being able to completely reverse the damage and siphon it completely from your mother’s system has dropped exponentially, and there is a good chance it will come back. However, it is possible to stall it at this point in time and have it remain in remission where it will not wreak more havoc on her body, but the chance of killing all of the cells and bringing her back to full health again is very slim._

Zitao’s father left them the very next morning - packed up everything he owned and vanished as if he’d never been in existence in the first place.

His mother didn’t cry much, but Zitao cried in her place over the fact that his father abandoned them when they needed him most. 

Since then, Zitao took up photography full-time and began traveling to take pictures of places his mother always wanted to visit but was no longer bodily able to visit them herself. Zitao, ever so willing and smitten by his mother’s affection, gladly went out of his way for her and has been screening full-size landscapes to bring her ever since. The last one she requested was a picture of the shores of Beihai, and Zitao had driven three days to take the picture and even brought her back one of Beihai’s famous pearls. She’d worn it around her neck on a thin, golden chain ever since. 

As his mother’s prognosis grew worse and transitioned into stage four, however, he stopped traveling in fear that something would happen while he was gone and he would return to find his mother dead. 

Which then brought him to the mail - his monthly radiology bills for his mother’s treatments, which took every single cent he’d earned from the restaurant and his photography that he had so little spending money that he actually sometimes had to have Luhan bring him food just so Zitao didn’t starve himself to death. God bless Luhan’s heart because Zitao doesn’t understand how anybody could be okay with spending that much money on their friend, but Zitao assumes it’s because he is employed. When rent comes around, Luhan typically has to pitch in for that, as well.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself as he sinks onto the sofa and flips open this month’s radiology bill. Nearly twenty-thousand even after insurance? Jesus fucking _Christ_ , there is no way Zitao will be able to afford that this time and he cusses as he realizes the price has spiked because her cancer is spreading instead of receding. 

Zitao cracks out a pen and paper as he begins to add up his totals from his photography alone, now that he is technically unemployed under medical warrant for being “emotionally unstable” and manages to round out his daily, weekly, and monthly earnings from selling prints. _I usually average one twelve-by-eighteen per day, and maybe two twenty-fours-by-thirty-sixes per week, so each week that’s about three-ten per week, so each month I’m only really making twelve-hundred dollars. Great._

He sighs and tears spring to his eyes because he’s going to have to borrow over _ten thousand dollars_ from his best friend, again. He needs a full-time job so badly, but the problem is what job is going to pay him twenty-thousand dollars a month? Especially when his degree is in photography. He supposes he could get another waitstaff job but he only made tips, and even retail is only minimum wage which is less than a thousand dollars for a whole month if he were to work weekdays and save weekends to see his mother. Realistically speaking, he can’t do all three at once. He either has to sacrifice seeing his mother and possibly not be able to say his real goodbye, or spend all of his time with her and let her cancer rapidly progress until she becomes so violently ill that she can’t even bear to have him see her in such a state.

Dreadful, he sets the bill aside on the table and opens his laptop to scour his online blog to check his sales. He sold two prints today, both of which were twenty-four-by-thirty-six, which means he made another hundred dollars today. He supposes he should be happy that he made a hundred dollars by doing absolutely nothing, but the mere hundred seems like pocket change when compared to the twelve-thousand he’s due to pay. Then as a waiter, he was only making around three-thousand hourly per month, and about seven-hundred in tips so even that coupled with his photography wouldn’t even be able to pay for half of his mother’s bill. What he takes from this little mathematics lesson is that even if he were to begin working again, he still wouldn’t be able to afford to keep his mother alive, and that thought is what keeps him up at night with an aching heart and tears streaming down his cheeks. He’s going to lose his mother, and it’s going to be all his fault.

Why couldn’t he just have been like any other smart kid and gone to school to become a doctor or a lawyer? Even an apothecary would make more than a mere photographer who doubles as a waiter. 

He switches the tabs to look at his feedback to get his mind off of his monetary failure and smiles when he sees all of the new comments on his blog feed. People do really enjoy his photography, but sometimes he receives comments complaining about how high his prices are for just simply _taking a picture of outside_ , and he tries explaining that it covers the cost of the camera, of the filters he uses, of the bokeh effects he sometimes likes to add especially on pictures of the sky or crystal-clear beaches. Other comments are more supportive and they tell him they will purchase one of his prints when they get the money. Although he enjoys receiving feedback, it saddens him that his following is only fifty-three. 

He’s not one to search for attention but sometimes he gets the desire to ask for it, to explain how his mother is dying and he needs the money to pay for her hospitalization - but then he remembers that that would be pleading and begging and the thought of doing so leaves a griminess in his mouth. 

He decides to upload this week’s round of pictures onto his computer by slipping the SD card into the side slot and letting the on-screen application process them. They’re beautiful captures of last night’s sunset, he thinks, all bright periwinkle melting into a warm pinky-peach reminiscent of sherbet and finally deepening into a pretty indigo towards the top of the sky. It was stunning, and he wasn’t able to resist snapping a few pictures, especially with the glimmer of the stars and the rows of fluffy clouds dusted in corally orange tones in the view, as well. He also decides to separately upload a picture of him onto his blog from the other day - one that Luhan had taken, where Zitao had posed in front of a wall and had Luhan shoot him - under Luhan’s request, of course - and when Zitao had actually looked back the picture, it wasn’t even half bad and he kind of liked it. 

His blog followers already knew what he looked like but it wasn’t often that he uploaded pictures of himself because he wasn’t trying to sell captures of his appearance - he was here to sell his landscapes. 

Truthfully, he’d heavily debated the time Luhan offered to move in with him just so he could help provide for Zitao’s mother and feed him without having to rush around all the time, almost as if he were Zitao’s partner, but Zitao declined and said he couldn’t drag him into this mess like that, especially when he would have to deal with Zitao’s moments of panic and his fits of relentless crying, which he really didn’t want anybody to see.

Luhan was a great friend, he really was, but Zitao absolutely loathed taking things from people, and even more so asking for things from people. He always believed that if he needed something, he should be able to go out and get it himself and that he shouldn’t ask others for favors. Now that it was his mother’s life at stake, Luhan had actually volunteered to help him pay for it and while Zitao had refused to take his help for a long time, when Doctor Kim phoned him with news of his mother’s condition progressing to stage four, Luhan was no longer asking. 

Zitao startles, suddenly, when his phone rings in his left back pocket and he stands up in a hunched-over position to remove it from his pocket. When he lifts it, he’s not at all surprised to see it’s Luhan calling him now. 

“Hey, Han,” he says breathlessly as he tousles his hair gently with his free hand and sits back on his couch.

“ _Hey babe_ ,” his friend husks in his ear in a way that makes him cry out in faux agony and yank the phone away from himself. “ _Hey, hey! Enough of the screaming! I have ears too, you know_.”

“Luhan, we’re not having phone sex for the last time, I know you keep asking but my answer is still no. Go get a boyfriend to do it with you.”

“ _Hey, listen here you, if it was that easy I’d be having vicious phone sex every day. Anyway, off topic. I’m on the way to your place right now, grab a jacket_.”

He frowns, “What? Why? Where are we going?”

“ _To the strip mall_ ,” his best friend says, and Zitao rolls his eyes. “ _There are these new jeans I’ve been looking at online and I want to go in person to try some on, but I don’t want to go alone. Come with me, come be my shopping buddy_.”

“Han, I have no money to spend,” Zitao sighs, and his friend interjects with a _nobody said you had to buy anything genius!_ “And don’t you dare buy anything for me, either. No shopping for me.”

“ _Fine, fine. Just please come with me? And bring your camera!_ ”

He glances at the time and realizes it’s only two in the afternoon. To be honest, it is kind of a gray, cloudy day and he wouldn’t be able to take many pictures, anyway. Plus it wouldn’t exactly hurt him to get out of the house and away from the hospital for once, right? 

“Fine,” he agrees, “but you’re buying me a hot pretzel on the way back.”

“ _Oh? I thought you said no shopping for you?_ ”

Zitao snorts as he wraps his hand in the cloth of his jacket and tosses it over his shoulder, and grabs his keys again to lock up the apartment as he heads outside. “I did, but if you’re going to take me out, you might as well buy me dinner, first.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So these are advertised as _butt-enhancing jeans_ ,” Luhan explains with his eyes locked on a stack of silver-woven dark wash denim, the guy’s dark blonde hair tied in a goofy little ponytail that Zitao still doesn’t understand the hype behind. “I mean, obviously marketed toward women but I like to refer to everything feminine as ‘ _for women and Luhan_ ’.”

Zitao reaches out and touches one of the folded pairs with his fingertips, the swath tight and smooth and surprisingly soft for denim. A cotton-blend, perhaps? “This seems like the kind of thing you have to actually be _looking_ for, like you don’t just accidentally stumble across a pair of butt-enhancing jeans.”

“They were in my Sunday newspaper, I promise!”

His best friend takes an armful of different pairs of jeans, some in multiple sizes and some in different colors, and it’s right then that the guy wraps his hand around Zitao’s bony wrist and pulls him out of the clothing section, and Zitao immediately knows to where he’s taking him hostage - the dressing room, because if there’s one thing his best friend Luhan is, it’s a camera hog, and the aforementioned piece of equipment hangs heavily from his neck.

Although they are only friends, Zitao knows they’ve crossed the boundary of being naked near each other a long time ago, so when Zitao sits on the changing bench and Luhan yanks his pants down below his rear, Zitao’s mind is far from sexually clouded even when the guy bends to shimmy out of them and hands them to Zitao to hold onto.

“Are those new undies?” Zitao asks to cut the awkward silence, and Luhan shoots him a humored look in the mirror.

“Yeah, actually,” Luhan laughs as he picks up one of his pairs of jeans to try on, his shapely behind facing Zitao nearly full-frontal in his tiny little creamy undies. “They’re my _I kind of want to impress you but I don’t feel like trying that hard_ underwear. Like them?”

“I mean, I can definitely see why you bought them.”

The first pair Luhan tries on is the silver-stitched dark wash, stretched roundly across his behind with grommeted pockets and conforming to the shape of the guy’s hips. Zitao raises an eyebrow at the butt-enhancing happening before his very own eyes, because he knows for a fact that Luhan’s butt is not nearly that rounded and prominent. 

“Good choice, onion butt,” Zitao comments and Luhan slides his hands over the curve of his hips. 

“Thank you for your not-asked-for opinion, Tao-ya.”

“You’re welcome, babe.”

The next pair Luhan tries on is a gray acid-wash with tears up the front across the thighs, and the waistband on them is just a little bit wider which leads Tao to believe they’re not the same type of jean as the other one. Although it takes a full thirty moons for Luhan to truly stop being so indecisive and pick the pairs he is going to purchase, they leave the store with three pairs of butt-enhancing jeans and one pair of regular show-offy jeans when he’s feeling extra masculine. 

Luhan’s a chatty one, making continuous small talk which Zitao is always grateful for as it saves him from the crippling grasp of his anxiety, but Luhan knows about his panic attacks, as well, and although the guy has never seen one before his own eyes, Zitao had long ago given him instructions on how to care for him should he go into an attack in front of his best friend. Luhan, the ever-capable, had given him a boastful grin and told him never to worry when he’s in his care, and it had made Zitao smile.

Chatty, yes, but worlds more competent and fulfilling as a friend, in such a way where Zitao finds himself lacking remorse for having only one friend. There are days where he shuts down and wonders why he doesn’t have more friends and why people don’t like him, but Luhan is always there just a phone call away and he makes sure to stay on the line until Zitao has ceased his crying and has declared that he’s going to be alright. Luhan knows very well that Zitao will always be alright, that he is not one to threaten himself, but Luhan can never be sure especially with Zitao’s mother’s impending death. When the time finally comes, Luhan isn’t so sure that Zitao will be able to say he’ll be alright this time.

“Is there anything you wanna look at, kid?” Luhan asks him while he’s lost in his thoughts, and it snaps him out of his reverie and he looks over at his best friend. “Any stores you wanna browse?”

“Han, I told you no buying me things today.”

“I’m not,” Luhan insists with a little laugh, eyes crinkling in the outer corners. “But everybody likes to window shop, so I figured maybe we could kill some time and go look in some stores at some displays before we leave. It’s still early.”

“Why did you even have me bring my camera, anyway?” Zitao asks, slightly distracted.

Luhan just smiles, and it begins to creep Zitao out when he doesn’t stop. “Because I may or may not want to drag you into one of these stores and may or may not want to have you try some stuff on and pick something to get you for your birthday in a few months.”

“Han, _no_ \- ”

“Yes, Tao,” he argues, and Zitao realizes that they’ve stopped in front of one of the most expensive stores in the entire strip and his heart plummets into his stomach. 

“No, definitely not here! This place is crazy expensive!”

“Oh, shut it, you. All you have to do is look at stuff, please?”

And again, Zitao caves because he’s weak and Luhan is the only friend he has and although he’s wary that Luhan will sneak his credit card to purchase something for him, just having Zitao browse seems like it will be enough to make the guy happy. 

The store Luhan takes him through is extravagant beyond belief, walls lined with individual articles as though each one only comes in one style and one color, and Zitao can practically smell the money it costs to own any one of them. The store is well-lit and the floors are polished and reflective above the marble, chandelier light fixtures hanging from a high ceiling and mirror columns placed throughout the floor.

“Jesus,” Zitao expresses as Luhan passes by racks of clothing and takes him to a back wall where there are mannequins littered with ornate tailcoats and gaudy poet shirts in several shades of pastel with uniquely accompanying layers of frills, breeches in varying styles and shades of plaid and cream lattice and even a designated footwear kiosk over to the left side, piled high in pyramid-format with shiny, untouched dress shoes and suede trouser boots.

“This is the men’s wall,” Luhan explains. “Back up there in the front is all for females, and I figured you’d probably be more comfortable with this kind of stuff.”

“I can literally smell how much each of them costs,” Zitao says exasperatedly, and it makes Luhan snort beside him. He can’t help himself but reach out and touch, trailing his fingers along each individual creation, feeling the knit of each fabric both rough and soft, both tough and pliable, and how well they go with each of the colors, as well. “God, these are _beautiful_.”

Luhan’s attention perks and he glances over to where Zitao is admiring the poet shirts, primarily a white one with golden swirls stitched down the expanse starting at the breast and darkening into a cool burnt ochre below the waist, embroidered on the rims of the cuffs in dark red plaid and on the upper left breast it is embroidered in the same dark red plaid: _KW._

“What’s _KW_?” He asks aloud, and Luhan steps over for a closer look.

“Maybe it’s the brand?” His friends asks and Zitao furrows his eyebrows. He’s never heard of the brand. Maybe it’s new? “Anyway, you like that one?”

Zitao looks back at the article and he does like it, he really does, and he thinks it would go very well with his skin tone, except one look at the tag has his heart stopping: _KW 17P $1,749.99._  “I liked it until I saw the price,” Zitao admits around something that should be a laugh but he’s suddenly filled with cold guilt because he knows Luhan would still buy it for him at such an outrageous price, and he really, really doesn’t want Luhan to waste that much money on a fucking shirt.

“No worries,” Luhan promises him. “Prices don’t matter to me. I’ll get it for your birthday.”

“No!” Zitao interjects as he drops his hand from the garment. “That’s way too much for one item, Han. I can’t let you spend that much on me.”

“You’re no fun, you know?” Luhan sighs. “I can’t even get you a birthday present without you complaining. Just let me spoil you for once, okay? You don’t get to buy yourself shit anymore ever since your mother got sick.”

“I know, but I have to earn it. I can’t just take a ton of money from you like that.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop asking. I won’t get you a birthday present then, sheesh,” Luhan sighs and lets his hands flop by his side, ruffling his dark tan waistcoat. “Can I at least get you to try some stuff one so I can shoot you?”

Zitao is ever so hesitant but he agrees because it’s merely trying on rather than purchasing, and he feels sour towards himself for upsetting Luhan in the first place. He knows the guy has only good intentions and genuinely wants to give his friend something to make him smile, but to have people paying for him makes Zitao queasy. 

Luhan does end up bombarding him with clothes, blindly picking up hangers and handing them to him with not even so much as a glance at the sizes and piling them into Zitao’s arms, possibly the most excited Zitao thinks he’s ever seen the guy. Zitao is shoved gracelessly into a changing stall with the clothes, and Luhan snatches his camera from his neck in the clumsiest of ways. 

“Come out when you’re done!” Is what Luhan tells him, and Zitao nervously eyes the pile of expensive clothing before him. What if any of them are too small and he tears them by accident? He doesn’t have thousands of dollars in-pocket to replace damaged clothing.

Luhan’s tastes in Zitao’s appearance have changed, he realizes, as all of the clothes in the pile are more simple and delicate and he procures a tanned - _vegan leather_ he realizes by the description on the tag - jacket with the same initials embroidered on the upper left breast in deep black this time rather than dark red. He leaves on the jeans he’s worn to the strip mall and unlocks the handle to the dressing room and steps out, and there is Luhan at the ready with Zitao’s camera in hand.

“Wow, you look good,” Luhan comments with a little grin before raising the camera to his eye. “Okay, say cheese!”

Although he is a great friend, Luhan is the worst when it comes to persistence in the way where Zitao cannot do anything on his own once Luhan’s set his mind to something, and after snapping a couple of pictures, Luhan ushers him back into the stall with a command to change and try on something else.

Needless to say, it is a _long_ afternoon before Zitao gets his hot pretzel. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luhan follows him back to the apartment for some liquor and an evening of sitcoms, and Zitao, of course, returns home empty-handed just like he had promised himself. He had made Luhan put every single item of clothing back where they belong because in such an expensive shop, they do not have return racks and Zitao was not about to let such high-quality clothing lay around and wrinkle. _I’m an artist and I know how other artists feel when people just toss their work around carelessly. They go back on their walls with respect,_ he had told him. 

“This is my bill for this month,” he says as Luhan sets his stuff down on the table and hands Zitao back his camera, and Zitao passes him the paper in return. “Gave me a fuckin’ headache but you called me just in time to get me out of it.”

Luhan whistles lowly and his eyebrows raise when he notices the price, and even Luhan is shocked at how much the bills suddenly skyrocketed in price. “Holy shit, last month’s bill was only eight grand, what the fuck happened?”

“It progressed,” Zitao explains as he runs a hand through his dark hair. “It’s not getting any better and she slipped into stage four, which means her radiation is more expensive than ever because it’s a higher dose and a higher power. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Luhan admits softly, and Zitao can hear the pity dripping from his voice.

“Not your fault,” Zitao tells him because truthfully it’s neither of their faults - neither of them could have controlled his mother’s condition. “I just - don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’ll pay it off,” Luhan tells him, and Zitao just hangs his head where he sits. “I know you don’t want me to, Tao, but this is your mother and you know I would help you. I’ve helped you with every bill.”

“I know but - I just hate taking money from you.”

“Tao, it’s okay, I promise. She’s like my mother, too, so of course, I’d want to save her for you.”

Zitao sighs and glances at his laptop on the table, long since been in sleep mode from when he left the apartment to go out to the strip mall with Luhan. Should he even get a job at this point? Even if he were employed, it’d be pretty pointless since whatever income he’d be able to make wouldn’t mean anything in terms of twenty thousand fucking dollars. “I need a job,” he whines, and Luhan looks up at him, “but nothing pays well enough for me to even put a dent in twenty-thousand.”

Luhan is silent for a long moment as if he were thinking, eyes trained down at the bill as he rereads it again and again, as the number sinks in further and further, before he speaks, “Have you looked in the online quarterlies?” Zitao frowns; _what?_ Realization dawns on Luhan’s face before he says, “Here, let me show you.”

The guy snatches Zitao’s forgotten laptop from the coffee table and wakes it up with a quick flick of the pad of his finger across the trackpad, and Luhan begins typing things into his browser so quickly that Zitao thinks the tremble in his hands is going to be enough to drop his laptop and break it, but Luhan turns the device towards him and Zitao sees that he’s brought him to a website full of annual magazines and job searches within said magazines. 

“The quarterlies sometimes hold jobs,” he explains to the boy, “but they’re really hard to come by so you have to know what you’re actually looking for, but the jobs you do find in here tend to pay much better than minimum wage jobs you’ll find through a job seeker.”

Zitao, however, isn’t anymore swayed. “Han, that’s great and all but I don’t have the qualifications for any of these big professional jobs. I have an associate’s degree in photography. What good is that if I need a salary that can pay for my mother’s hospital bills?”

“How do you even know what they require if you don’t try and look?”

The boy pouts and takes a glance at his laptop screen. “Mother said I should try professional photography, like photographing models or something like that, but I don’t think that pays very much, either.”

“Probably not,” Luhan shrugs. “And besides, if you manage to land a big expensive job, there’s nothing that says you can’t do both photography and work.”

“I know. It’s just - I need them to be considerate with… with my panic attacks.”

Luhan inhales and turns the computer to himself again, “That’s something you just have to tell them because that falls under medical which, if you’re not doing a job that’s physically strenuous like retail work or construction work, shouldn’t be much of an issue especially since it’s a mental issue and not physical. I think it’s actually illegal for an employer to turn you away because of mental illness, but don’t quote me on that. I’m not a lawmaker.”

Zitao is still, face stoic as he thinks of all of the things he’s doing wrong. Why did he have to get diagnosed with anxiety when he was fifteen? Why did he have to have a panic attack at work? Why did he have to be gay and make Mr. Lee angry that he stood up for people like him? 

“Want me to help you look for jobs?” Luhan offers, and Zitao’s heart does a hopeful little leap. For some reason, the idea would be slightly less terrifying if he has someone coaxing him through it. Zitao agrees and Luhan’s face practically glimmers with hope, and not for nothing, but Zitao is mainly letting Luhan help him because Zitao doesn’t really know how to go about getting more professional jobs. Are the requirements upped? Are they more strenuous? Does he need a more advanced résumé? 

He lets Luhan take the reigns and watches as the man leads him down the website holes and Zitao begins to see job openings of all kinds open up right before his eyes. _Assistant gynecologist, dental worker, middle-school vice principal, stockbroker._ Zitao doesn’t think he’ll ever be qualified enough for any of these. “Are you against working in an office?” Luhan asks him, and Zitao views it neutrally because he’s truthfully never even stepped foot into an office other than his boss’ and even then it was a bland, compact little thing no bigger than his own restroom. 

“Not really?” He responds, voice lilting as if unsure, and Luhan nods a little bit. “I mean, I’ve never worked in an office before, so - I don’t really have a first impression.”

There are another few long seconds where Zitao can see how vividly Luhan is studying the page in front of him, fingers still where they just ghost across the trackpad, where Luhan taps once here and there and scrolls using Zitao’s keyboard buttons. He wonders, blearily, what Luhan is looking for exactly and why he isn’t reading any of the jobs out to him. Maybe their requirements are too high?

Then Luhan lets out a little snort of a laugh, catching noisily in his throat, and he turns the screen to Zitao. “Look, perfect for you.”

Zitao raises an eyebrow because what job could be perfect for him? And when he glances at the screen to see what Luhan had been looking at, his face falls and he shoves the guy by his shoulders. _WANTED: KW Enterprises Recruiting Models [Female, 18-30] Requirements Below._

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Zitao rolls his eyes as Luhan lets out another laugh. “We must have just met five minutes ago because I could have _sworn_ I was a boy.”

Luhan just smiles at him with a shifty little grin, and says, “Yeah, but isn’t that your big designer _KW_? Maybe this is your chance to go suck his dick for a blouse.”

“Luhan!”

“What? I’m kidding. I mean, not really.”

“It’s really not funny,” Zitao presses. “I really need a job, Luhan.”

His friend, however, just sighs and takes the computer back, “ _Fine_ , fine. But it pays really well, Tao. A starting salary of two-fifty a year.”

Zitao’s heart skips a beat at the words - two-fifty? That’s just over twenty-thousand a month! That would be just enough to afford his mother’s bills! But, no - it’s a job for women. Fuck, why don’t any of the other jobs pay as well and have very limited requirements? “Do you want to hear the requirements?” Luhan asks again, and Zitao’s nerves begin to fizzle. 

“Were you born yesterday? It’s a job for _women_. And as much as I’d love to joke with you later, this is serious and I really need to find some money.”

“Tao,” Luhan deadpans. “It’s _right here._ Where are you going to find a job better suited for you with this kind of income? And look, the only requirement is a photography portfolio! And _wow_ , guess what? That’s something you actually have, _wow_ , who would’ve thought?”

“Alright, you can drop the sarcasm,” Zitao rolls his eyes and leans back into the plush of the sofa. “I already told you, it’s a no. How do you expect me to pass for a woman? Are you crazy?”

“Uh, with makeup and fake hair?” Luhan offers with a little shrug. “How else? In case you haven’t noticed, you can’t really afford something like a sex change and plus, makeup is only temporary.”

“Han,” he stresses once again. “I’m a _guy_.”

“Yeah. I got that already. A guy that should put some makeup on for twenty-thousand a month.” 

“Luhan, that’s not going to fucking _work_. People aren’t stupid and they’re gonna be able to see right through me.”

His friend grins a mischievous little grin and Zitao knows that look, and he fucking hates that he knows. That’s Luhan’s plotting look, like he’s planning something. The look causes Zitao’s gut to swirl something foreign and makes his blood curdle. “Not if you let me be the one to put it on you.”

“No,” he says out of reflex, his first instinct to refuse and stand up for his masculinity. Even if he were a more baby-faced guy, which he’s really not, that doesn’t mean anything because all it takes is for someone to be just nosy enough to notice something that isn’t supposed to be there. 

“Why not?” Luhan responds in a little puddle of disappointment. “Drag queens do it. They even tuck their shit so you look flat-front like you’ve got a vagina. Nobody will notice. And plus, I _do_ actually know what I’m doing. Remember high school theater club? I was the makeup specialist for the set crew.”

“Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t do drag, either.”

Luhan sighs, this time, clearly annoyed, “Tao, I’m not kidding. If you want this kind of money, the only place you’re going to find it is in a job like this, or sex work. Pick one.”

Whether he’d like to admit it to himself or not, Luhan does have a point and Zitao knows it. He knows better than anybody with working at the restaurant and giving every cent he has to his name towards his mother’s bills that life is full of sacrifice and life is extremely unfair, and sometimes you have to do things that you hate more than anything for the sake of money or for the sake of somebody else, and in this case, for the sake of both. Then there’s the fear of legal repercussions, like if it exists to get arrested on imposter charges. Can they arrest him for faking his gender for work? He knows that in a normal social way it is nothing bad, but he has no idea how the professional workforce views something like that, and he’s scared to find out the hard way. 

Yet, when has Luhan ever steered him wrong? Okay, well, a lot of times, but this is something Luhan actually has some kind of experience in. Maybe the guy’s got a point? Maybe Zitao just needs to see it to believe it.

“How about I make you a deal?” Luhan starts up again, which snaps Zitao out of his troubled thoughts. What kind of deal? he can feel on the tip of his tongue, but part of him is too afraid to ask. “You let me give you a makeover, and if you like it, you apply for the job. If you don’t like it and you still think I’m kidding when I say you’d make an attractive woman, you can beat me into next week until I’m a boneless pulp. Sound good?”

“A _makeover_? What are we, twelve?”

“ _Tao_.”

“But what if someone tries to stick their hand up my skirt?”

Luhan shrugs, “Then you sue them on sexual harassment charges. You’re making this so much more difficult than it needs to be, Tao. All it is is putting on a costume and playing pretend. Like I said, it’ll just be a makeover because I want to see how it looks on you, and I want you to see how it looks on you, okay? And then if you really insist on hating it, I’ll never bring it up again. I promise.”

In all fairness, Zitao has to put the money before anything. Having Luhan do this would be rather harmless, and maybe he _does_ have a solid shot at a good salary for someone with a degree in photography. He knows he would have to put together a portfolio which means having Luhan shoot pictures of him while he’s in-character, which means getting to express himself artistically and hopefully winning extra cookie points. If the portfolio looks good and the initial glance-overs go off without a hitch, then it’s his voice he’s got to worry about, but maybe he could take dialectical lessons - maybe he would just have to practice raising his larynx? 

“Fine,” he says as he caves, and Luhan’s face illuminates in bold, bright hope. “But if I get turned away at first glance, I’m blaming you.”

“ _Yes_!” Luhan self-cheers, rising from the couch and pulling Zitao with him to squeeze him in a makeshift hug. “Thank you! I promise I won’t let you down!”

Luhan releases him and practically sprints to Zitao’s back bedroom, and Zitao has the growing idea that Luhan is spending the night by the way he can hear him rummaging through the boy’s closet. Wouldn’t Luhan have to stop home before this supposed makeover to go get whatever he needs? Because, last time Zitao checked, he wasn’t running a full-length backstage boudoir in his bedroom. “...Jeez, you’re more excited about this job than I am.”

When Luhan announces his leave to run back to his apartment and returns with handfuls - no, _armfuls_ of shopping bags stuffed to their breaking point that Zitao gets pain in his chest just from looking at him and _shit, okay, I guess we’re doing this thing right now, okay._

“Don’t worry,” Luhan reassures him as he begins unpacking the bags, contents bright and colorful and girly, Zitao notes. All shades of pinks and corals as the guy unveils things that Zitao doesn’t even recognize and can’t even place a name on - a lot of small plastic pots of substances, long rectangular things, a bunch of small tubes that Zitao wants to guess are lipsticks and a handful of pencil-shaped things. It’s almost as if Luhan brought over Pandora’s beauty box and unloaded it into Zitao’s apartment, because Zitao doesn’t even know what some of these things are. “We’ll do this tomorrow, okay? I’ll wake you up for it tomorrow.”

Zitao frowns and says, “But what if I haven’t showered?”

And charming as always, Luhan responds to him with a cheeky little grin and a handful of hair - of _hair_ \- and an accomplished glint in his eye, and shit, Zitao never went to see any of the theater productions but if Luhan really had been the one doing the stage makeup, Zitao kind of regrets not going and not seeing the guy’s handiwork in action. “You can shower whenever, because I’m styling your hair tomorrow.”

It’s going to be a long morning, isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Zitao wakes up the next morning, true to his word, Luhan comes knocking on his door and shaking him awake and it must be an ungodly hour for Zitao, who has been long-since-conditioned to waking up at almost noon, because his eyes feel sewn shut and his body feels pulpy. 

“Get up, sleepy head,” Luhan says with a gentle little shove, and Zitao groans with closed eyes and buries his face in his pillow again, mumbling out a gruff little _five more minutes, just five_. “No, it’s already nine! It’s time to get up, we’ve got a big day ahead of us and your makeover is going to take me at least an hour.”

Zitao groans again but rolls onto his side and cracks sleepy eyes open, squinting in the brightness as he realizes that Luhan’s yanked his curtains back and sun is pouring through the window. “Can I at least eat breakfast before we fuck me up?”

His best friend laughs out loud at that and takes a step away from the bed to allow Zitao to sit up. “Of course, I made scrambled eggs and bacon. Up and at ‘em, kiddo.”

Zitao is not a morning person so it takes a good twenty solid minutes for him to get _up and at ‘em_ , but he manages to drag himself from his bed after checking his emails and his social media notifications, and skips out entirely on dressing himself in decent clothes because he figures, knowing his best friend, Luhan is _absolutely_ the type to even have an outfit for Zitao to put on in his exact size. How Luhan even knows the boy’s measurements is way beyond him, because Zitao is pretty sure that even friends closer than they are have never swapped body measurements. Okay, well, maybe dick size. 

When he manages to drag himself bonelessly to the kitchen, still not really that hungry and still just as weightless, Luhan’s got the entire expanse of Zitao’s dining room table covered in everything he’s going to be using, and the sight both excites Zitao and terrifies him. He’s not even sure where to start explaining what the fuck Luhan’s got all over his table, but everything is more organized than Zitao’s bathroom cabinets, color-coded and every single tube lined up perfectly and every pot stacked and every piece of hair wrapped in its plastic and strung together with a rubber band.

“What is all this stuff?” Zitao asks in awe, voice crackly from sleep. Luhan practically skips past him in his ugly plaid pajamas and Zitao wonders how someone with this much makeup product has such ugly pajamas. He looks like a pre-made Sims character.

“Sit, sit!” Luhan tells him theatrically, and the pep in his voice makes Zitao’s eyes roll as the boy sinks himself into a seat at the head of the table. “I’ll get you your food and I can explain while you eat. I’m not gonna put expensive makeup on you only to have you fuck it up and wipe it off because you eat like a heathen.”

“I do not!”

“Do too.”

Zitao rolls his eyes and says, “I pick up after myself no matter what I do.”

“Okay,” Luhan laughs, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t make a mess, to begin with. Every time you come to my place to spend the night, when you leave the next day, there’s popcorn bits everywhere and you always leave _something._ Last time it was your phone charger.”

“Stop calling me a walking menace, it’s too early in the morning,” Zitao whines. 

Luhan sets a plate on the table in front of him, followed by silverware and a glass of fruit juice and Zitao’s stomach rumbles unconsciously. The eggs are slightly peppered and smell just the littlest bit cheesy, and Zitao prides his best friend for always being a better cook than he himself is. “Dig in,” Luhan tells him without preamble. “I’ll start getting everything ready, don’t worry. Although I might need to keep coming over to touch your face and stuff, I’m not putting anything on you yet.”

Zitao’s tearing hungrily through a strip of bacon when his eyebrows furrow at the statement and he asks, “Then what do you need to touch my face for?”

“Ah,” Luhan perks up as he gazes at his stash as far as the eye can see on Zitao’s table. “I need to match your skin color so I’m gonna be putting different shades of foundation on tester strips and holding them up to your face.”

He frowns, “What’s foundation?”

Luhan stands at that and turns back to his friend. “You know, face makeup. To cover your skin.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t even need to worry, kid,” Luhan tells him. “I’ve been doing this ever since I was a high-school freshman.”

Zitao knows that, because when school would let out, he would constantly ask Luhan if he could come over and hang out, but Luhan more often than not had to stay after for theater, so it wasn’t until Zitao was a sophomore and Luhan was a junior that Zitao understood _why_  because Luhan had never been a theater nerd. It wasn’t until Zitao had followed him to a practice and asked to see what he does, and had sat in the backstage studio for hours watching Luhan apply people’s makeup with a stunned look on his face. 

To say the guy was anything short of graceful would be an understatement, because sometimes Luhan had to put makeup on children from the school’s daycare program. Sometimes the children would be set extras in the shows and Luhan was the epitome of calm and patient, holding each child’s chin with careful fingers and patting their faces with his makeup sponge. Zitao hadn’t understood a damn thing about makeup, but needless to say, he was extremely disappointed when Luhan hadn’t gone to college for cosmetology. _It’s not practical_ , he’d told Zitao. _What are the odds I’ll ever be a famous makeup artist for a famous celebrity? Slim to fucking none, haha._ It’s painfully ironic judging by the situation they’re in now.

“When was the first time you ever touched makeup?” Zitao asks him after a forkful of eggs, dark hair falling into his eyes when he bends. “Like, what was your first experience using it or wearing it?”

It takes Luhan a moment to think - respectively so, because if the guy was _this_ skilled with it back in high school, he must have been playing with it for a long, long time. “Probably when I was seven. My mother had this little palette of makeup she’d take everywhere in her person, and it had eyeshadows and lipstick and those cheap glittery lip glosses, and I never knew what it was until I took it one day when she’d set her purse down. I guess it became obvious to her that I had gotten shifty because little boys aren’t born with sparkly purple eyelids.”

“I remember you used to get picked on a lot for it,” Zitao comments, and his friend snorts.

“Oh yeah, big time, but they were never wrong. I _did_ turn out to be just as gay as they told me I was.”

It makes Zitao laugh and he nearly spills his juice all over his own table, but he manages and the sight makes Luhan smile. They sink into a comfortable silence as Luhan picks up some small bottles from the rear portion of his collection and takes a little bit out of each and smears whatever he’s collected on his finger, onto a strip of thick rigid paper. 

His friend is gentle when he comes over and carefully presses the pad of a finger to Zitao’s jawline, and Zitao stops chewing just in case. “I’m matching it to your skin,” Luhan tells him, and oh, that new wetness on the side of his face makes sense now. “So, if you end up getting this job, just know that I won’t be able to be your makeup artist every time you go into work, or even if you leave the house because you’ll now have to live your life in disguise, so I’m gonna teach you what everything here is and what they’re used for, okay?”

Zitao nods, mostly disinterested and he sets his fork back on his plate, sated for now. He’s still got quite a bit of food on his plate but he wasn’t very hungry in the first place.

“Have you had enough to eat?” Luhan asks absentmindedly as he messes with some products and more testing papers. Now that Zitao is more awake, he actually notices things. Like how Luhan’s got his bangs tied back and his glasses on, face completely bare and dull like he hasn’t exfoliated yet. 

“Oh,” Zitao says as he pushes the plate away from himself a little bit and settles back in his chair. “Yes, thank you. It was good.”

“I know,” Luhan replies cheekily. “Okay, I’ve got your skin matched. Are you ready for your big transformation?” The guy smiles as he says it and Zitao kind of wants to pass through the chair and sink into the ground, but he has to put his pride aside for just one day because this isn’t for him, this is for his mother. 

“Not really,” he sighs, “but I guess I have to do it sooner or later.”

“You’ll be fine. Alright, first thing’s first,” Luhan quirks as he reaches over to another chair and lifts up a stack of folded fabric, and Zitao’s eye catches shades of lilac and white with coppery, floral brocade. “You have to change clothes.”

Right, looking the opposite gender means not wearing men's clothing. Right. “Do I have to?” Zitao whines and lolls his head back against his chair, not wanting to stand up. 

“Yes,” Luhan presses. “Either you dress, or I do it.”

In the end, Zitao dresses in his bathroom and struggles with the lack of stretch in any of the fabrics. Do women even wear stretchy clothing at all? He’s frightened he’s going to rip something and then have to pay Luhan back for it, because who knows how much these clothes cost. Matter of fact, why does Luhan even _have_ girl clothing?

“ _Close your eyes when you come out and don’t open them_!” Luhan pipes up from the dining room, slightly muffled and echoed from where Zitao is. 

He does as he’s told and opens the bathroom door with his eyes shut, and blindly feels his way down the hallway until there are hands on his shoulders that make him jump. “Don’t worry, it’s just me. You look so cute, Tao-ya.”

“I feel like a cased sausage,” Zitao whines as he sinks into a seat, courtesy of Luhan’s guidance, his hands in his lap and his eyes still shut. Luhan chokes out a laugh and Zitao hears an awful lot of clicking and thwacking, and he wonders just what in the world Luhan has planned for him. 

“You’re not a sausage, shut up.”

“I feel like I can barely breathe, how can girls stand this?”

“Oh my God, stop being such a drama queen. The outfit isn’t even that tight. It’s just a skirt and a top, relax.”

There’s a sudden powdery wetness on Zitao’s cheeks and he flinches, confused by the strange oxymoron. It feels tacky and wet for just a second but then it feels like talc, which makes no sense at all to him. Seeing his confusion, Luhan says, “Don’t worry, just a primer.”

“What’s that do?”

A snort. “What’s it sound like?”

“Well fuck you too, damn.”

Luhan steps back to the table and picks up the little pot of custom-matched makeup he made for Zitao just minutes prior, and taps into it with a makeup sponge. “Alright, I’m gonna put the foundation on now, okay? Always do this after a skin primer, though.”

“Why?”

“So your skin looks less shitty and it makes guys hard around you.”

“Good reason.”

The sponge bounces carefully on his skin and he feels Luhan drag his nails up his scalp as he pins Zitao’s bangs away from his face. It’s slightly wet and feels cold and Zitao can’t tell if it’s a pleasant sensation or if it’s a gross one. “You should start doing a skincare routine,” Luhan tells him offhandedly. “Not even for the job but just for your own benefit. Your skin’s pretty dull and you have some dryness on your chin and your jawline.”

“You’re gonna have to walk me through that, too, ‘cause I’ve only ever washed my face with soap.”

“Yeah, you gotta start using moisturizers and toners, kid. I know you’re twenty-two looking twenty but we want to have you forty-seven looking twenty-six.”

The sponge leaves him and he assumes Luhan is done with this step, so he lets out a calm sigh and the tension in his brow eases. He hears more clicking noises and when he opens his eyes, he realizes Luhan’s returned to the table and is fiddling with something new. “What comes next?” He asks without thinking, and he hears Luhan clear his throat a little bit.

“Concealer,” he says. “Skin-toned for the undereye area, colored for spot-correcting. So like, green for redness, yellow for purple hues.” Something wet swipes underneath his eyes and makes him flinch backward, and Luhan laughs. “It’s not gonna hurt you, silly.”

Luhan taps the makeup out with another sponge - or maybe it’s the same sponge, but Zitao can’t look to see. The sloped tip of the sponge presses into the pad underneath his eye and makes his eyes water a little bit, but he keeps them shut. “You’re lucky I’m letting you do this,” he says, and Luhan makes a noncommittal noise. 

“You’ll like it,” Luhan tells him quietly, concentrated. “Trust me.”

Zitao wants to snort because what is there to like about being forced to be the opposite gender? Zitao doesn’t like to be forced into _anything_ , but then again, Luhan does know him better than anyone other than his own mother. What if he does end up liking it? What then?

Next comes _powder, for over top everything so nothing is tacky and then eyeshadow primer, the same concept of the face primer but for your eyes._ The eyeshadow tickles nearly to the point of relentlessness and Zitao begins to twitch in his seat, fingers itching to scratch. “Sorry,” Luhan apologizes as the fluff of a brush swipes over Zitao’s eyelids. “This part will take the longest, so you might as well get comfy.”

Once Zitao grows accustomed to the feeling on his eyelids, it’s actually not too bad. Luhan pulls his skin gingerly taut with his thumb, but not so much that it hurts. The brush swipes are delicate and soft, not at all prickly like he’d thought they’d be. “Is this like painting?” He asks. “But, you know, on a face?”

“Kind of,” Luhan says. “Except instead of wet paint, we’re using dry powder.”

Zitao makes an _oh_ with his lips, not wanting to nod and screw his friend’s work up, since Luhan tends to be wholly devoted to his artwork and hates to be sidetracked. 

“The thing with makeup though,” Luhan adds as his voice moves away from Zitao’s face for a moment before returning and Zitao feels more baby-soft brush strokes, “is you always want to do wet first, then powder. Don’t put wet on top of powder, it’ll ruin it and grab weird and you’ll look shitty, trust me.”

“Is powder like a finishing spray on top of charcoal?” Zitao asks, remembering how he used to always do charcoal portraits in late high school and hung them all inside of his mother’s bedroom. Sometimes he drew made-up faces, sometimes he drew his friends, and sometimes he drew his family, starting out as a sketch when one of them would be seated and watching television, and Zitao would surreptitiously sketch them. 

“Yeah, in a way. Like, you know how after spray, even if you use a workable solvent, it’s still kind of weird to put charcoal on top of ‘cause you’ve got that plasticky layer now?”

Zitao hums, and Luhan moves away from his face to say, “It’s _just_ like that.”

He wonders if they’re done with Zitao’s eyes by the way Luhan seems to be opening more packages and more containers, and then there’s a big brush swiping along the sides of his cheeks, and after a few moments, near the inner corner of his eyes and striping down the sides of his nose. “Contour,” Luhan says quietly, absentmindedly. “For definition. Then blush, for - blushing, obviously.”

These steps go by very quickly because next thing he knows, Luhan is warning him to brace himself for blinking and to keep his eyes shut, and then there’s something very wet and cold sliding across his eyelids. “Oh God,” he whispers. “That feels… weird. And gross.”

“Eyeliner,” Luhan says. “Exactly what it sounds like.”

Oh yeah, Zitao knows what eyeliner is. His mother used to wear a blue eyeliner all the time when he was younger, and she would outline the outer half of her eye with it into this almond shape. She would never wear any other makeup, just her dark blue eyeliner, and she’d wear it with every outfit she had, coupled with this orange coral-toned lipstick she had. 

“Almost done,” the guy tells him. “Gonna do your eyebrows next.” And he’s not exactly sure what _do your eyebrows_ means, but he feels something tacky and slightly wet being pressed into his brows and since when could you put makeup in your eyebrows?

He’s not really sure what’s happening next but a brush returns to his eyebrows and to his nose and to his cheeks, and he feels a gentle touch along his eyelashes. Then, something solid and quite round is pressing against his lips with Luhan saying, “Open.” and he assumes it’s the guy’s finger which is gross to think about, but Luhan more than likely washed his hands prior to this.

After the torture is done, he both feels and hears Luhan pull away and walk back to the table, and he sits still and takes stock. His face feels a little bit heavy, almost like he’s got a layer of cream on it or something. There’s also a hint of something - perfumed? 

“Okay,” Luhan says after a long pause, and Zitao lets out the breath he’d been holding. “You can open your eyes.”

Zitao isn’t sure why he half-expected to be presented with something completely shocking but when he opens his eyes, he’s still looking at the same mess across his table, only much more disheveled now with forgotten sponges and used wipes strewn here and there. Luhan is opposite him on the other end as he fiddles noisily with something plastic, or something _wrapped_ in plastic, and when Zitao notices the color of whatever Luhan is holding, realization dawns on him and his heart skips a little bit.

“I’m going to do your hair now,” Luhan walks back over to him, looking just as perfunctory and stereotypical of an art student as Zitao would think, in his sloppy clothes and color-dusted hands. “Let me know if anything hurts or if I burn you by accident, okay?”

“What?” Zitao snaps out of reflex, head jerking to the side. “Burn me?”

Luhan blinks at him and his lips curl in a makeshift pout, “Well, I’m going to be using heat tools.”

“Please don’t burn my apartment down, not today.”

“No promises.”

When Luhan’s hands slide through his hair and against his scalp, Zitao sighs and relaxes back against the chair, when Luhan unclips his bangs and pulls them back with what feels like a very small comb. “This might take a few minutes, but it won’t hurt, I promise. Well, it shouldn’t hurt.” 

Zitao manages to zone out when he hears the snip of the hair straightener, and Luhan’s body moves into view as he stands in front of his face to play with his hair. “I’m glad you still haven’t cut your hair,” Luhan says, and Zitao cracks an eye open. “It’ll make it easier for the extensions to blend in.”

_Extensions._ That’s right, most girls have long hair, don’t they? “Hey, I like the little ponytails, okay? They’re cool.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna need you to sit up so I can get to the back of your head, though, okay?”

Patient and calm, Zitao does as he’s told and sits forward, keeping his hands in his lap as Luhan’s hands dive to the back of his head, and he feels Luhan tying parts of it back and combing parts down, and then he begins to feel telltale _snaps_ against his scalp. “Don’t worry,” Luhan comments quietly. “Almost done.”

It only goes on for a few minutes before Luhan grabs a can of hairspray and holds his palm over Zitao’s eyes, and begins to spray, and it’s then that Zitao realizes he must have been sitting in this chair for close to an hour by the way his buttocks have numbed. A cloud of the spray begins to sink down into Zitao’s face and he begins to cough, choking on the taste of what he assumes pure, unadulterated poison would taste like.

“Sorry,” Luhan whispers with remorseful features. “Okay, I think we’re done! Are you ready?”

Zitao opens his eyes and blinks. When he looks down, there are strands of long, dark brown hair flowing down his shoulders interlaced with a little bit of lighter brown and maybe even some dark red strands, and he reaches up with a hand to feel where they’re coming from - and he feels pins, extravagant pins that feel as though metallic and bejeweled, wound in his hair and when he glides his fingers over the place where the pins intersect, he’s shocked to feel his hair continue going… and going… and _going._

He stands on bare feet and Luhan wraps a hand around the boy’s forearm, making note of Zitao’s clearly shaken expression. “What’s your thought process, Tao? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?”

“I feel…” he starts, unsure and a little bit emotionally rattled. “Different. Weird. I don’t like it.”

Luhan scoffs at that and says, “What d’you mean you don’t like it? You haven’t even _seen_ yourself. Don’t be so soft, you’re gonna love it. Come on.”

The guy leads him blindly away from the table and Zitao nearly stumbles over his own feet several times, but he manages to find the strength of the wall and structures himself that way. “Today is just full of me being led around like a marionette, isn’t it?” He complains a little bit, and Luhan snickers behind him with his hands on the boy’s shoulders. 

When they stop in front of Zitao’s bedroom mirror, however, Luhan lets go of him and whispers, “Open your eyes.”

The moment Zitao sees his reflection in his standing mirror, his heart jumps into his throat and his mouth runs dry as he stares at the caricature of a _stranger_ , someone Zitao both feels familiar with and feels as though he’s never crossed paths with, and when Luhan had said that Zitao would make a pretty woman - he wasn’t kidding.

The blouse cinches at the waist and falls flat down his breastless chest, but the sash of the skirt is wound tight as the satin flows behind his knees and stops just below mid-thigh, and Zitao’s hair falls beneath his clavicles where it’s pinned back elegantly and curled just at the very ends into a delicate wave. He steps closer, reaching up to touch his face that is no longer his face, the width of his nose suddenly gone and shrunken into this tiny, carved little thing and his lips painted a sweet scarlet. “Oh my God,” he expresses softly, eyes widening as his skin _glows_ , shining on his nose and his cheekbones and he stares at someone that isn’t really him but is a more demure, foreign version of him, someone who looks awake and reborn and _new._ “Oh my God.”

“What’d I tell you?” Luhan boasts behind him, as Zitao’s hands sweep slowly down his waist and to the satin of the skirt. “You like it?”

Zitao stares at his reflection for a few more long seconds before taking in a shaky breath and saying, “I don’t know. It feels… wrong. Like I’m… impersonating someone.”

“You are,” Luhan adds as he steps over to him to be included in the mirror’s reflection. “You’re impersonating yourself, but that’s not what me asking if you like it means. It means, do you think it will work to fool someone during an interview?”

Zitao thinks deeply about his next response; he admits that he looks pretty, but does he look like a female? Zitao isn’t really sure. “I don’t know. What do you think? Do you think I look convincing?”

Luhan gives him a look over as Zitao turns around and leaves his back to face the mirror, and looking at him in this kind of light with a soft sunlit glow where Luhan can see every natural curve of Zitao’s face in the daylight - he honestly could be convinced. Sure, Zitao’s got hairy legs and unkempt eyebrows, and even the shadow of an Adam’s apple, but if Zitao were to shave and learn how to conceal his neck there, they might really be onto something. “As of right this very second?” Luhan asks, glancing him up and down with a hand rubbing his chin. “Not really, because your legs are too hairy.”

Confused, Zitao looks down. “Hey!”

His friend laughs and gives him a gentle smile, and says, “Now the question I need to ask you is - do you feel like you’re pretty?”

Zitao glances back to the mirror, still just in awe of how _not himself_ he looks with his hair styled up and out of his face like that, with his eyebrows filled in and straightened, with his under-eyes for once in his life no longer dark. He looks like himself, but at the same time, he looks like an entirely new person, so he concludes that - “Yes,” he feels pretty.

“Then my work here is done,” Luhan tells him with a pat on the back and a big, cheesy grin. “Oh! I got it! How about we go shoot you while you’re like this? And don’t worry about your legs, I have stockings for you to put on. This way, if you really deep down don’t believe that you look convincing, I can show you from a professional standpoint. Okay?”

Zitao sighs, but he knows this is for the best, and plus, he always kind of likes how he looks in pictures taken with his camera, so what could it hurt? “Okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

True to his word, Luhan hands him a pair of heeled shoes for him to wear and his gut clenches as he resists - “No, no fucking way. You got me in this get-up, but no way am I wearing high heels.”

“They’re not even that high!” Luhan whines. “Please? If you’re going for a modeling job, you’ve got to get used to wearing heels, Tao. You’re gonna have to do it.” And realistically out of options, Zitao does, slipping them on his feet and becoming awash with surprise at how well they fit and how the heel doesn’t feel too terribly pole-like, like he had anticipated it would have. They’re a pretty champagne-gold color with a tinny shimmer to them, but not quite something glittery. 

When he stands with his hands in Luhan’s for extra guidance, he wobbles and almost immediately falls back onto the bed. _Easy,_ Luhan tells him. _It takes time, it takes practice._

Once Zitao gets the hang of it, though, it’s only been about twenty minutes of trying and four minutes of almost-crying when Zitao can walk in one straight line without needing help. Luhan claps for him, proud as ever, and ushers him outside onto the apartment porch with Zitao’s camera in hand. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“These fucking suck.”

Luhan lowers the camera from his face as Zitao mopes and moans, hands reaching down to pry his heels from the grip of the shoes as he massages them with slender fingers. “Already? You’ve barely worn them for ten minutes, they shouldn’t hurt yet.”

“Oh, they don’t hurt just yet,” he hisses as he stands back up straight, face scrunching in discomfort, “but I can tell they’ll start to hurt pretty soon here.”

“Well,” Luhan sighs as he shrugs and raises the camera once more, “let’s hope they’re even the right size.”

The shutter clicks before he’s even given enough time to process the statement, and it takes Zitao by surprise as he hadn’t had time to actually pose, and when his friend lowers the camera from his eye to glance down at the shot, the wheels in Zitao’s mind start turning again as he says, “What?”

His friend perks up, then, and a shifty smile spreads across his lips, “Nothing.”

“Wait, don’t save that!” Zitao whines and reaches for the camera, only to have it snatched from his meager grip as Luhan tightens his possessive hold on it. “My legs are out!” 

“Don’t worry, I won’t shoot your legs,” his friend says with a slight roll of his eyes. “Oh, how about we get one of you by the tree? Hopefully, your neighbors aren’t home to see this.”

“What?”

“ _Nothing_!”

Zitao struggles slightly when he walks down the porch, and it only intensifies when he’s met with the few meager stairs that lead from the wood down to the pavement, and he groans and lashes out hands to grab onto the sturdiness of his friend’s torso as his knees bend and his hamstrings tighten and scream out at him. “Careful, one at a time,” Luhan goads as Zitao places one foot down onto flat ground, and Luhan gives him a little supporting push to help lift him back into position as Zitao comes to a full stand. 

“Fuck me,” he groans tiredly, wheezing into his friend’s shared air bubble. “I won’t be able to walk at all tomorrow.”

“Okay, Drama Queen,” Luhan laughs and lets the boy support himself on his shoulder, taking confident steps with wary hands strapped to his friend’s bicep as if afraid to let go. After letting the buzzing pain on the soles of his feet subside, Zitao lets go and steps over to the tree in the lush grass just beyond the stone porch. The soft earth recedes beneath the weight of his arched feet, and he’s almost positive he’s probably too heavy for this kind of shoewear by the way his footprints depress the grass below him, but anything for his mother’s welfare, right? “Get against the tree and don’t worry about your legs, I promise.”

He positions himself in front of the tree, prettily curtained in the shade as his hair cascades down his chest, covering what _would_ be and _should_ be breasts, but _aren’t_ \- mere nipple covers with additional padding to mimic the flesh of bosoms. Luhan had suggested them as a bit of a last-minute-decision to make him look more like a female rather than someone in drag, and Zitao has to admit, they’re not actually that uncomfortable. 

“Tilt your chin up a little bit,” Luhan instructs as he raises the heavy camera over his eye and twists the lens just slightly. “No, to the side, not up. There, like that. Face down a little - little bit more - _that’s_ it, perfect.”

The shutter clicks and experimentally, Zitao shifts to his other side, bouncing his weight onto the ball of his other foot and feeling the ache rocket up his calf from the tension of the shoes. He hisses slightly, but keeps his face stoic and positioned as Luhan takes another, then another, all projected straight and Zitao can tell from here, where they stand meters apart, that the lens is zoomed in to not include his legs - just as Luhan had promised. 

It must be a wondrous sight, he thinks - if someone were to walk down the street and see someone dressed so prettily and delicately and have legs so hairy, they’d keep them warm in the winter. He’s sure he’d gain quite the stares since most people around here aren’t used to that kind of thing.

“Okay,” Luhan says as he lowers the camera and lets it dangle from his neck as he places his hands on his hips, and his mouth twists in thought. “Let’s get one of you beside the tree, and put one hand on it like it’s your lover.”

Zitao frowns, face contorting in humored confusion. “My lover? You want me to act like I make love to this tree?”

“No, dummy, just act all lovelorn and shit.”

Zitao does as he’s told, and finds that he doesn’t feel very insecure or fake right now - it feels nice, somewhat natural, to be taking pictures like this, so gentle and bright and innocent. It’s entirely unlike the other pictures he takes of himself, dark and brooding in an unsaturated film. He tries to imagine himself emotionally torn from a break-up, maybe saddened by a disheartening text message, and manages to take one picture with his eyes cast to the ground, and another making direct contact with the lens.

“Good, I like that,” Luhan comments absentmindedly. “Really brings out your eye makeup.”

He’s readjusted into more positions as they go along, back against the tree as he glances over at the camera, back to the camera with a lingering hand on the bark, obviously going for a secretive, virginal feel. He doesn’t mind it because it’s better than being near-fully exposed and spreading himself across the hood of a car, or something. Besides, this is only temporary. He hasn’t even applied for the job yet - and truthfully, he’s not even sure if he’s going to follow through with it.

The last one they do with the tree involves Zitao sitting down - thank fuck, he thinks, as he outstretches his legs and sighs as the tension in his heels practically evaporates and he can give his tendons a rest - and Luhan kneels down at his side, blanketing his skirt over his legs as best he can and as elegantly as he can without mummifying his lower half, and places the boy’s hands in his lap for him, fiddling with his hair to straighten it, and adjusting him as he sees fit. “Don’t slouch too much. Chin out, we don’t want any double chin. There you go, and tilt your head down and close your eyes like you’re asleep. Nice, nice. Give me a small smile, like you’re dreaming. _That’s_ it, _perfect_!”

The shutter clicks multiple times, and he assumes that Luhan is taking multiple-angles and he makes sure to take slow, even breaths. 

“You’re quite good at this,” Luhan comments with a little laugh as his voice thins, and Zitao assumes he’s pulled the camera away from his face and he takes the opportunity to open his eyes and look up. His friend has knelt in front of him with the camera lax along his chest and a crooked smile on his face. “Modeling, I mean. You’re really a natural.”

“You act like it’s the first photo shoot I’ve ever been in,” Zitao snorts and lends his hands to his friend to help him stand, and Luhan’s arm muscles flex as the boy finds his footing. “Did you just forget the last few years of our friendship?”

“I didn’t mean folding your arms and leaning depressedly against a back-alley wall, you know,” his friend tells him and runs a hand through his hair. “When given a theme you’re not used to, you’re very good at adjusting to the newness.”

Zitao shrugs, because he is used to having his photo taken, and it really just comes down to getting into character and doing exactly what his given photographer tells him. He glances down at himself, brushes his hands on his clothes, and says, “Thank you, I guess.”

When he looks back up, Luhan is clicking through the photo roll in the camera, and Zitao takes it as an opportunity to call this whole shoot quits and he very quickly shucks his shoes off and sighs, practically moans, when the stressed skin of his bare feet meets the dewy, cool lick of the grass. He bends to pick the shoes up with a hand and steps over to glance at his camera in his best friend’s palms. “How’d they come out?”

“You’re gonna love ‘em,” Luhan smiles and tilts the screen towards Zitao’s line of sight, and presses a few buttons. “Check it out.”

His friend lets him flicker through the photo roll and Zitao’s heart leaps in his chest. The sunlight and the soft, latticed shading of the leaves have given him an ethereal appearance, bathing his silhouette in gentle light and glazing over his skin, softening his appearance as the coral tones in his rouge flushes his features. “Holy shit - that’s _me_?”

“That’s you,” Luhan confirms with him with a little laugh. “What’d I tell ya? I know my angles.”

“How come you never went into photography, then?” Zitao asks them as they return to the apartment porch and head back into Zitao’s house, twisting the key in the lock and letting Luhan go in first. “You’re so good at it.”

“Eh,” the blonde says with a shrug. “Not really my forte. I mean, of course, I enjoy shooting you because you’re my best friend, but I went all out this time because you let me do your makeup and you trusted me to make you look good. The full-time devotion isn’t really my thing.”

Once they’re inside, Zitao locks the door behind them and hangs his keys back up on the door hook, and drops the shoes carelessly beside the welcome mat as he trudges over to the living room couch to flop down on it beside his best friend.

“Are you sure? You could make a lot of money off of it, probably more than me, ‘cause I’m really bad at shooting people but you seem to be really good at it.”

“Nah, no thanks. I’m not gonna steal your artistic thunder.”

“No, don’t give up just ‘cause it’s my thing! You can do it, too.”

“Tao, I’m good, really,” he laughs and slings the strap off of his body from around his neck to place the camera in his lap. “I’ll stick with makeup, don’t worry. We can be a makeup-and-photography duo and book appointments together. Partners-in-crime.”

Zitao rolls his eyes and watches tiredly as his friend pulls the SD card from the underside of the camera. “So what now?” He asks, legs thrown carelessly one over another with his skirt ruched up, more than likely presenting his underwear on display but in his house, he’ll be in his underwear if he wants to be. 

“We upload them to your computer,” Luhan says, already halfway into Zitao’s laptop being the only other person to walk the earth that knows Zitao’s password and has full permission for whenever-he-wants access. Their trust for each other has run so deep that they’ve even given each other access to their own individual credit cards. “And I say we post some of them on your blog and show your followers. Sound good?”

“Uh,” Zitao mutters, unconvinced. “I don’t think that will work. I mean, all of my followers are used to the melancholy undertones in all of my photos. All of the landscapes. I don’t want to make this a modeling blog.”

Luhan shrugs, then, and Zitao wonders if he’s got an idea. “Just say it’s your sister and say it was a test shoot. Bullshit a story. Say she’s - I don’t know, really shy, and you being a photographer, you offered her a shoot to make her feel more attractive. That way you’re baiting, but you’re baiting in a way that actually shows off your talents.”

“Okay, but that means they’re probably gonna want more pictures of my so-called _sister_ ,” Zitao explains dryly. 

“Yeah,” Luhan nods. “I know. What do you think this whole job is for?”

His mother, really, but perhaps Luhan has a point. If he gets more traffic and therefore more money for pictures of himself in disguise as his sister, then it’ll give him an idea of how many people would potentially pay money just to see his face again, and therefore, will give him an idea of how successful he might have a chance to be if he decides to take the risk and jump the course. “Fine,” he decides. “How many should we upload?”

“Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide.”

The laptop is turned his way and Zitao hoists himself back into a sitting position, nearly having fallen asleep in his comfortably lazed spot on the sofa, and scrolls through the folder of the uploaded pictures. Some of them uploaded sideways, but Zitao is used to having to adjust photos once they’re on his computer, and especially having to retouch photos and apply additional filters to them as necessary. 

Zitao settles on uploading just two pictures to be discreet and not too obvious - one of him resting a hand and his forehead thoughtfully against the tree, and one of him sitting against it with the sun shrouding him from behind. Seeing such lively pictures in such healthy lighting actually makes him feel as though they don’t need any additional retouching and filtering, and he uploads them as is. 

With a following as minuscule as his, feedback is simply not going to be immediate, so he’s got hours worth of time in his palms to kill. With a sigh as he watches the post go live, he settles back in his spot, looks over at his best friend, and asks, “So what should we do now?”

“You bore easily,” Luhan laughs and rests his cheek against his fist, propped up on the sofa’s bound arm. “Hm, well it’s almost noon. Wanna hang out today? Go out for lunch, hang out somewhere, maybe swing by the hospital later to see your mother.” 

“I’m not really hungry yet, though,” Zitao pouts. “We could just go out and have a snack and then go out for dinner, then spend the evening at the hospital.”

“What time does your mother usually sleep?”

“Hm, usually she falls asleep around ten or eleven, then wakes up in the middle of the night and sleeps until late morning. I’ve spent the night there many times. She watches movies at four in the morning, sometimes.”

“Insomnia?”

“Hm, a little bit. Most of it’s the pain. The morphine’s wore off halfway through the night, so she gets a dose every six hours now. Once at nine, then again at three, and repeat.”

“Ah. I’m sorry she’s suffering.”

Sighing, Zitao lays back against his friend’s shoulder, “It’s fine, it’s not your fault.”

Comfortingly, and much to Zitao’s pleasure, his friend lifts a hand and gently pats him on the head, smoothing the dark hairs out of the boy’s face and smiling when he hums childishly in satisfaction. One might think of it as romantic but inside their friendship bubble, they’ve established long ago that neither of them would ever develop feelings for the other, giving them the safety of a perfectly platonic intimate friendship. “So, out on the town, yes?” He asks, and the boy groans immaturely. Luhan laughs as he gently nudges him off and stands, stretching his limbs out and rolling his neck. “I suppose I’ll go get changed.”

The boy lets out a sigh as he sits up in his spot, “I’ll go change, too.” 

“Oh, no,” Luhan stops him with a raised hand, and Zitao’s face stills in bated surprise, “no no no. I’m not gonna go through all the hassle of making you look nice only to have you take it all off. If we’re going out, you’re staying like that.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you’re going to live like a girl, you have to get used to _acting_ like a girl, too. That includes getting used to wearing high heels.”

Zitao’s lips curve, then, as if about to whine, “But won’t people, like… check me out? I don’t want to be stared at.”

“Oh, of course,” Luhan nods and crosses his arms over his chest, “but don’t worry, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend for a day. I won’t let anybody do anything to you. Let me go get changed, yeah? And then when I come back we can head out.”

When Luhan takes his leave, the pout comes in full swing as the weight of what’s going on finally sinks down onto Zitao’s shoulders. He’s going to have to go out into the entire viewing world like this, dolled up and exposed and unable to run and hide. People are going to know he’s a fraud, they’re bound to know - people aren’t _stupid_. And yeah, sure, Luhan has a skillful hand and a great time paying attention to detail, but with each minute that passes, he feels less like a female and more like a man in makeup. It’s not every day that he wants to burrow his head back into his bed and actually not see the public eye, or even swing by the hospital, but right now he feels more vulnerable than he’s ever felt in his whole life. “My legs are still hairy,” he says aloud, slouching slightly as he glances down at the stark contrast between the innocent satin touch of the skirt and the coarse, dark hair peppered sparingly all down his thighs. Although not an overly hairy man, Zitao certainly is aware that his body hair isn’t invisible.

Then, a response comes from deep in Zitao’s back bedroom, as Luhan shouts out, “I’ll bring you a pair of pants, sheesh!”

,  He’s dressed in dark colors, a graphite button-down tucked into seamless black pants that give off a sheen almost as if coated. What Zitao finds slightly humorous is with how smartly the guy is dressed, he’s still walking around in dingy old white socks. 

“Here,” the blonde hands him the denim in his hands, and Zitao stands as he takes them. “They should fit, I used your measurements.”

The denim feels cold in his hands, but the comment begins to sink in and Zitao frowns, slightly confused, “How’d you get my measurements?”

Luhan had taken a half-hearted trip to the dining room table, back to the boy and as Zitao speaks, the blonde’s head turns over his shoulder, “I’ve had your measurements forever. Okay, well, I took them two years ago. Which means if you’ve gained any weight in the past two years, we’re fucked.”

Zitao watches as Luhan begins to fiddle with his makeup table and Zitao begins to think that the guy is already packing his stuff up - but then he realizes that Luhan is applying some on himself. He takes the opportunity to unzip the skirt from his waist and let it fall to his ankles, and he begins to pull the jeans up his legs and onto his hips. Although a little snug, they do fit and they have some nice stretch in them, maybe more cotton-blend than wholly denim. 

The legs of the pants are tight all the way down to his ankles, and Zitao can’t remember the last time he wore super-skinny jeans. Middle school, maybe. Nevertheless, they do feel nice, and Zitao gets the aching feeling they’re women’s jeans because why would Luhan let him wear his familiar loose-leg men’s jeans? “What should I do now?” He asks, and his best friend turns to look at him with the makeup sponge pressed to his cheek. His face is blank, at first, but it falls as he begins to laugh to himself and stands from his seat.

“You’re so hopeless,” he says as he sets the makeup sponge down, and Zitao realizes he’s covered his entire face in that foundation stuff, his skin now a smooth, even shade of warm porcelain. “Move your arms out of the way.”

Zitao raises his elbows, keeping his arms above his waist, as his friend grabs onto his hips and begins to pull the waistband of the jeans away from his skin, and Zitao has half a mind to tell him to cut it out and that it’s making him uncomfortable - until his friend begins to tuck the loose ends of his blouse underneath the fabric, and Zitao realizes how frumpy he must’ve looked. 

“Don’t ever wear a blouse over high-waisted jeans,” Luhan comments idly. “It looks messy and makes you look uncoordinated. I’d recommend a cropped shirt with regular hip-huggers.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Zitao asks humorously. “You act like I own and regularly use feminine clothing.”

“They’re things you’re gonna have to know, dude. What if you’re not on the clock and one of your coworker girls asks you to go to a pub with her? What are you gonna wear? A hoodie that smells like men’s cologne and your ratty old jeans from tenth grade? Very convincing.”

Glancing down, Zitao takes in the sight of himself in the jeans. They’re a nice saturated dark blue with a soft cotton swath to them and accentuated tan threading. They don’t taper at the leg, rather staying pressed to his skin all the way down, and although not uncomfortable, Zitao worries about the spandex-like stretch in them. “Wait,” Zitao says suddenly, and his friend begins to wonder if maybe he’s hurt him by tugging on his clothes. Maybe he hadn’t put enough thought into how to handle Zitao in them, or if the jeans even hurt him at all. Then, the boy takes a shuddery breath in, and says, “What about… what about my dick?”

It takes his friend too long to process just what he meant and just how he meant it. When it finally sinks in, however, he can’t help but let out an obnoxious laugh as if uncontrollable and pats his friend on the back. “Oh dear, do I really have to teach you how to tuck, too? Alright, let’s go. Come on. Class time with Luhan.”

They head into Zitao’s bathroom with the aforementioned woman in tow, and Zitao’s throat has run dry a long while ago. Is Luhan going to strip him down and handle him by himself? Zitao knows their friendship knows nearly no qualms but touching each other like that is where he draws the line. However, in the midst of his internal conflict, he watches as Luhan simply bends to reach underneath the sink - where Zitao keeps his soap and his cleaning products - and pulls out a pack of… _something_. Something that Zitao feels like he should recognize, definitely _does_ recognize, and would rather not be known as the guy that uses them. “They’re women’s menstrual liners,” Luhan explains. “Obviously you don’t need them for menstruating, but a lot of girls wear them in their underwear if they’re going to wear thin pants, like leggings or yoga wear. They’re good for getting rid of cameltoes.”

“I’m not wearing a pad,” he deadpans. “I appreciate you doing all of this for me, Han, but this is really where I draw the line.”

“Can you just trust me for once?” His friend sighs, eyes rolling slightly as he gives him a narrowed look. “They’re very thin, you’ll barely even feel it’s there. They’ll help you tuck by hiding the shape of the tuck. Come on, try it. You have no idea if you’ll even like it until you try it.”

“Uh, I know for a _fact_ I’m not gonna like wearing a menstrual pad, but okay. Whatever you say.”

“Put it on,” Luhan warns him with a playful scowl and takes a step out of the doorway to give Zitao some privacy. Honestly, when Zitao had woken up today, he can’t say he exactly expected to have to put on a _menstrual pad_ in order to hide the parts of him that shouldn’t be exposed. 

Really, what has his life even become at this point? Whose idea was it for him to have to wear a fucking pad in order to keep his mother alive? This had to be the most bizarre trade-off he’d ever heard of in his life. “How are you even supposed to tuck it, anyway?” He asks aloud and hears Luhan’s body rustle against the wall. “Do you like - tie it down or some shit?”

“Oh my God, _no_ , no tying anything. You tuck it back towards your ass.”

“...You do _what now_?”

“Just try it, Tao.”

Sighing, he does as told and unwraps the liner - small, he notes, and extremely thin - and lays it in the gusset of his underwear. Then, with a deft hand, he tucks himself down and back. It’s weird and slightly uncomfortable, and when he pulls his underwear back up, he feels as though if he were to squeeze his legs together too tightly he might accidentally hurt himself. 

When he’s done, he pulls his pants back up and looks at himself in the sink-top mirror. He definitely looks a little bit more flat-fronted, and call him crazy, but the apex where the crotch seam beelines against him looks smoother, almost like he doesn’t have testicles hanging around outside of his body. Impressed, he opens the door and steps out.

Luhan is prostrate against the wall in a casual stance, arms folded over his chest and one leg crossed over the other as he leans his weight entirely against the wall, still looking just as dashing and just as clean-cut as he had before. “So?” He asks with a shifty grin when the boy faces him and they make eye contact, Zitao just as nervous as ever. “How did it go?”

He gulps slightly, unsure if he should be honest or lie just to spite this whole process and make it so he never has to use the stupid liners ever again. However, this is his best friend, and Luhan isn’t the type to do something to make Zitao look stupid. He really is the most helpful person that actively exists in his life right now, both with his mental state and also with his mother, so maybe it will just take some getting used to - just like a new tattoo or a new pair of shoes. He decides to be honest by saying, “...It’s tucked,” and could roll his eyes at the surge of pride that washes over his best friend’s face.

“See, what’d I tell you? God, you’ll be a natural at this job.”

“Han, I haven’t even applied yet. We don’t know if I’ll even get the job.”

“It’s not too early to start preparing, though,” his best friend taps him on the rear cheekily before returning to his spot at the table. “I’ve got an idea, yeah? We’ll spend the day out, have some dinner, then come back so you can change and we’ll head over to the hospital to see your mother so you can have some time to think about the job, alright? Then after that, we can talk about our next plan of action to decide just what to do next, and if you decide to apply, I’ll help you as best I can. Okay?”

Zitao sighs, forlorn, and glances over to his forgotten champagne-gold shoes lain by the door. It’s going to be a long day.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I do wanna get some shots of you while we’re here,” Luhan mentions beside him as they walk, hand-in-hand, towards the middle of the park where the Ferris wheel resides. Zitao isn’t stupid, and quite the contrary, his eyesight has always been rather immaculate judging by how many men he’s seen glance over at him or turn their heads to look at the boy’s backside as they walk by. He wants to believe that it’s because he’s attractive, that it’s because he’s pretty and girly, but he can’t squash the feeling that it’s because he might look costumey and fake and they might be laughing at him in their thoughts. “Maybe by the Ferris wheel.”

“Do we have to?” He asks quietly, shyly, and it must be out of character by the way his best friend slows his steps and glances over at him with a look of worry. 

“Well, we never _have_ to,” the blonde explains, “but I thought maybe you’d like the Ferris wheel as a background, with all of the string lights and whatnot. Is… everything okay?”

Zitao presses his lips together, feeling the balmy gloss on them slide as he pouts, and his best friend’s grip on his hand tightens. “People keep looking at me.”

It dawns on him then that Zitao is perhaps feeling insecure, feeling less attractive with each growing minute. It seems as though the novelty of being dolled up only lasted those very first few minutes, and as the day progresses, it’s beginning to make Zitao feel incredibly out of his comfort zone. In a moment of comfort, Luhan turns and takes a step to the side to stand in front of him, and Zitao realizes he now has to look down at him slightly, the heels elevating him even more and it becomes evident that he’s never before realized that Luhan was actually shorter than him. 

“Hey,” his friend says, “look at me.” The blonde warms up his shoulders underneath the thin chiffon blouse, and Zitao sighs pitifully as their eyes meet. “I’ve got you, alright? You’re with me. It’s okay. I know you’re probably uncomfortable, but it’s obviously gonna take some getting used to, okay? Don’t worry, I’m always right here.”

He sniffles, not quite tearing up but saddened nonetheless, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s alright, don’t cry now,” Luhan gives him a supporting little smile and offers him the end of his shirt sleeve to wipe what little tears he has away. “You look too pretty to ruin your makeup here. It’ll be okay, trust me. Alright? I thought maybe you’d like to take some pictures here, maybe even get some shots of the Ferris wheel, but we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

The boy takes a slow breath outward and nods, the buzzing in his nerves dulling. Luhan is right - he came this far, he can do it. It’s just so very strange to feel so clothed and yet so naked at the exact same time, and in the most public place in this neck of town. “Okay,” he says, and Luhan takes it as a sign to step out of the way and let him begin to walk at his own pace, whether slow or quick, and it makes the blonde smile when Zitao reaches for his hand once more. “The Ferris wheel sounds nice.”

They end up taking only a couple of shots in front of the Ferris wheel, and Zitao even takes some of Luhan just for aesthetic measure. Zitao’s come out soft and bright and pretty, and when Zitao is handed the camera to take over and use, he lowers the exposure and his best friend’s turn out much more unsaturated and dramatic, and they find it very fitting given what Luhan is wearing. 

“Profile picture worthy?” Zitao asks him as he shows his friend a horizontal shot of him turned slightly away, the natural highlight from the sun and the angle at which his face is cast bringing shadows to the surface of the skin, giving him a mysterious and slightly seductive look. “I think it’d look good with a red filter.”

“I’ll make sure to use it on my dating profiles,” his friend laughs, and Zitao smiles, wholeheartedly, openly. “Did you like yours?”

The camera is shifted back to Zitao’s line of sight as he flicks through some more of the pictures, before shrugging offhandedly. “They’re okay.”

Rolling his eyes, Luhan says, “They’re nice and you know it. Don’t be bashful. Look, look at this one!”

“But there are people staring at me in the background.”

“Okay, but the sun! Your _highlight_ , though!”

“You’re way more excited about this than I am. Are you sure you don’t want to apply for the job instead?”

“Oh my God, Tao, if you don’t see how pretty these are, I’m really going to shove them down your throat.”

“They’re okay,” he expresses - stresses, really, words forced on a harsh edge. “They just don’t feel… like me. And yes, I know, it’ll take getting used to. It’s just really weird seeing myself as something I’m not.”

“You gotta get used to it, is all,” his friend shrugs and takes the camera back from him, slinging it around his own neck and popping the lens cap back on. “You will. You’ll learn to love it. Now, how about a drink? You want anything?” 

Zitao watches awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs down in his lap as he stands in the middle of nothing, as Luhan procures his wallet from his back left pocket and flips it open. Zitao feels terrible for making his best friend pay for everything when they hang out - from drinks to food, to even gas - it makes Zitao feel like such a burden, like a mooch. “Nothing, thank you,” Zitao says politely and tries his best to force a sweet little smile but his best friend must see right through it by the way his eyebrows furrow and he lets out a sigh.

“I know that look,” the blonde says monotonously, slightly disheartened as he pulls out a bill. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I got it, don’t worry. I’ve got plenty.”

“But I’m a bother.”

“You’re not a bother. I’m rich, remember? Kind of the star child of a twelve-million inheritance? I think I can afford to buy you a soda. What kind do you want?”

He pouts and sighs, realizing his best friend is really not going to back down from this. He pities himself because he knows he should be in a better spot financially, especially at this age. He should be making more money, should have a better degree, and should be able to afford even something to drink outside of his mother’s hospital bills. Pitiful, he says, “Can I have a seltzer? And if they have flavorings, can you get me raspberry?”

“Sure, baby,” Luhan flirts, giving him a saucy wink. “You want a snack, too, or anything? Ice cream?”

“No thank you,” he opts for, and the corners of his lips curl into a genuine, contented smile, and Luhan reaches up to ruffle the top of his hair very gently as to not mess it up. His best friend announced that he will return soon enough, and Zitao takes it as his cue to find somewhere to sit. 

He thought it would have been harder finding a seat in such a crowded area but it seems as though most of the people here enjoy walking, so he takes a seat on a nearby bench and reclines against it. To make himself look a little busy, he pulls out his cell phone and begins to check his email. He’s not sure exactly what emails he might actually find - junk mail, most likely - but it’s very awkward to sit alone and to make awkward eye contact with passersby. He briefly debates calling his mother when he remembers that she is probably about to take her afternoon nap - if she has not already begun, and decides against it. His mother needs every minute of sleep she can possibly get. 

Now that he thinks about it, how would his mother react if she saw him dressed the way he was? Would she laugh? Would she recognize him? Zitao thinks it would end with a laugh and a playful slap - _classic mother._

He remembers the time he came out to her as gay many years ago. _I know,_ she had told him. _I’ve known this whole time_. When he had thought back on it, he struggled to remember exactly when and how she would have known because he was absolutely sure he’d never let it slip. She’d told him all about how he used to rummage through her purse for her makeup and play Makeover, and she’d caught him a couple of times undressing and redressing his old Ken doll in all kinds of outfits. He’d never played the stereotypical heterosexual game of House where once your parents leave you alone, you undress Barbie and Ken and make them _have relations._ Rather, Zitao had apparently owned a collection of Ken dolls akin to any little girl’s collections of Barbie dolls, and that had been where he got his characters to play House. At the time, the memory had been plenty embarrassing and he’d begged her with flushed cheeks to forget about it, and she’d simply patted him on the head as she laughed at the sweet reminiscence and told him not to worry. 

Of course, however, being the embarrassing mother that any mother is, she’d told Luhan the entire story when Zitao’s back had been turned, when he’d been busy in the kitchen and Luhan had had a minute of spare time to converse in hushed whispers with his best friend’s parent. He’d laughed about it for months on end and Zitao had been red in the face for the next four days straight. 

He remembers when he’d gotten his first boyfriend - he hadn’t yet been aware that you weren’t supposed to bring a partner home that you weren’t serious about in the long run, and he’d been quite upset that his mother didn’t take an immediate liking to the guy because he felt like his feelings were being ostracized. Weeks later, however, his mother had an opportunity to spill her whole _I-told-you-so_ gloat when the boy had broken up with Zitao, and Zitao - being fourteen and naive and inexperienced - had been heartbroken and had cried shamelessly on his mother’s bosom. _Silly boy,_ she’d said. _You really thought you’d find your true love before you’re even an adult? True love will hit you like a brick to the face, so quickly that you won’t see it coming until you wake up one day completely smitten and lovelorn_. As he’d gotten older it had become more and more obvious how right she was.

In his reverie, he feels a careful tap on his left shoulder and turns to glance over, expecting Luhan with hands full and needing assistance as humans only have two hands - but instead, it’s an unfamiliar fellow standing over him, sunkissed skin and dark hair and a startlingly pretty smile. “Excuse me,” the guy says, and Zitao’s eyebrows furrow slightly. Have they met before, or something? Why else would this stranger be approaching him?

Slightly unnerved and plenty confused, Zitao asks, “Yes?”

The guy fidgets a little bit in his step and it’s incongruously out of character for someone as well-carried as himself, and Zitao wonders if maybe he needs to use the restroom and struggles with asking strangers for directions. Then the guy licks over his bottom lip as if for initial support and responds with, “I, um - I saw you by yourself over here and I - you looked lonely, so I thought maybe you’d want a milkshake, and I would be honored to purchase one for you.”

He frowns as the gears in his mind struggle in their rotations; what is it with everyone wanting to buy him things? Does he have poverty written on his face or something? What is it with everyone treating him like a beggar? He’s really good at suffering to save him the embarrassment of asking. “No thank you,” he replies kindly, lips pressing into a thin line. “I’m not really hungry, but thank you.”

“Awe, are you sure?” The guy asks him, smile crooking and head tilting. “I’d really hate to leave a girl as pretty as you on an empty stomach. Let me buy you a drink. Whatever you want. What’re you into? Rum? Vodka?”

“This is a theme park,” he mumbles, lost. That’s right - he’s a girl here. “They have alcohol here?”

“There are bars for a reason, aren’t there?” The guy laughs, but Zitao finds it hard to laugh with him. “Don’t tell me you’re a whiskey kind of girl.”

Then, much to Zitao’s disdain, the guy actually steps over to take the seat next to him - the _only_  empty seat there is on this tiny little bench, and the two of them are both decently-sized men albeit one being in women’s clothing, which leaves no room for even an infant to sit between them. Confidently, Zitao can say he has never felt so awkward in a long time. “I’m - really not interested, but thank you.”

“You smell kinda nice,” the guy replies without pause nor preamble, and Zitao tries his best to scoot himself to the other end of the bench that doesn’t exist. “Do you always smell like this?”

“I don’t - ” Zitao blanches as he’s forced to throw one leg over the other in order to make elbow room for himself, “I don’t know. It’s just soap, I guess? Look, I’m really kind of busy and I don’t - ”

“What kind of busy?” He asks saucily, corners of his lips quirking up as he suavely tosses an arm across the back of the bench, hand resting just behind Zitao’s shoulder blades. “Can’t be too busy if you’re sitting on a bench all by yourself. Why not tell me your name?”

“Look, I _really_ \- ”

“What’s going on?”

Zitao perks up, heart skipping a beat as Luhan frowns in front of him, visibly confused and because Zitao knows him better than anyone else, he can see a tendril of anger mixed in there, as well. He sighs and stands from his seat, immediately grabbing onto his best friend’s arm and shooting him a slightly despaired look. Grumpy, Luhan hands him his seltzer in a plastic lidded cup and Zitao takes a childish sip. “Can I help you?” The blonde asks as the guy shifts to stand, and his face falls into a strange medley of disappointment and betrayal. 

“I offered this nice girl a milkshake and asked her name, but she wouldn’t tell me,” the guy tells him, and Zitao could roll his eyes if he were confident enough because the guy is so full of shit. “I really did want to buy her a drink, she was too cute to leave all alone like that.”

A snort. “Yeah, well, she’s my girlfriend, so hands off, alright? I’ll leave her wherever I want to leave her because it was a mutual decision for her to be left alone.”

Zitao’s eyes widen as he glances up at his best friend. They’re really not messing around with formalities today, are they? Luhan is right to the point today, and wow, Zitao never thought this guise would have been able to work this well for this long in a million years. 

However, the man crosses his arms over his chest in a complete change of personality, and he sets his tongue in his cheek as if irritated. “What kind of man leaves a girlfriend as pretty as yours all by herself?”

“The kind that buys her a drink that she actually asked for. She doesn’t like milkshakes, buddy. She likes seltzer water. Get a new fuckin’ pick-up line, will you? Your moves are stale and your deodorant smells like a wet pine tree.”

Zitao can’t hold back his laughter this time and slaps a hand over his mouth in an attempt muffle it but it’s far too late, and the guy’s face falls as the realization that his schmoozing has failed him, and Luhan’s hand slides around Zitao’s lower back. “Fine,” the guy sighs. “Forgive me, miss.” He proclaims as he bows before leaving, and Zitao gives his best friend a distant look as the stranger walks away, and they watch him disappear into the crowd. 

“Am I really that convincing?” He asks, lips finding the tip of his straw as he takes another sip. Chuckling beside him, Luhan gives him a look-over and takes a sip of his own fountain soda.

“Honestly? You don’t know the half of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Zitao loves roller-coasters.

It’s not often that he gets to go on them because Luhan gets motion sickness and he really has no other friends to invite, and Zitao just _hates_ having fun all alone because then it’s not fun. There’s no fun in having fun when you can’t have fun with others. 

He goes through a brief anxiety spell where he worries about his shoes getting snagged on one of the parts of the machinery or even a hole in the floor grating - but the attendant is rightly understanding and gives Zitao permission to remove his shoes and set them off to the side, and he sits in his car barefoot and pulls his safety belt over him.

However, they don’t get so lucky when Zitao forgets to look exactly where he’s walking as they exit the ride, and he rolls his ankle as he walks over a pebble that is probably too large to be considered a pebble, but perhaps not small enough to be considered a stone, and he cries out as he falls at Luhan’s side. His best friend rushes to his aid to help him recollect himself, and Zitao teeters on embarrassed enough to cry, but when n Luhan pronounces his ankle just twisted, you’ll be fine, Zitao sucks it up and hides his face for the rest of the evening. 

Okay, so maybe no more roller-coasters. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I feel like if I eat anymore, I’m gonna puke.”

He sighs heavily as he reclines back against the booth seat, laying a tender hand on his swollen belly. Luhan had treated him to one of the most expensive meals they could find, which made Zitao feel both horrible and horribly honored, and Luhan had told him not to worry and that it was a gift for all he put Zitao through that day. When they’d walked into the hotpot restaurant and were seated at a booth, he’d told Zitao to buy every single side and single dish his heart desired. 

Now an hour later and stuffed full of fried pork and garlic-herb steak and even chive-seasoned lobster, Zitao feels like he’s been impregnated with a food baby. “Nobody told you to keep eating, silly,” his best friend laughs as he scrapes his last mouthful of rice out of a tiny single-serving bowl. “You said that twenty minutes ago and then you had another helping.”

“Okay, but my stomach got emptier twenty minutes ago. Now it’s filled to capacity.”

“Your colon is going to be filled to capacity later.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

As Zitao broods away in his food coma-induced pain, Luhan manages to flag their waiter down and asks for their bill. Zitao gets curious and asks if he can see it, but his best friend - ever the stubborn, cheeky fellow he knows him to be - tells him no, and not to worry, and begins scribbling his name along the signature line at the bottom. “At least let me tip,” Zitao says in his cloud of discomfort. “I can’t have you pay for dinner and also pay for the tip.”

“What tip money do you have, Tao?” The blonde laughs and the boy’s lips close as he thinks about just what he’s proposing here. Had he really forgotten how broke he actually was? He didn’t even have money to buy himself a snack, so truly, what tip money does he have? And Zitao is too personable - never has he denied someone a rightful tip, and especially not when the waiter had been ever so kind and ever so charismatic and friendly. “Last time I checked, you didn’t even have money to buy yourself a hot pretzel.”

“Hey, shut it, you. How much should we give him?”

Luhan ponders the question, pen stilling in its trail on the check when Zitao notices the waiter return with a stride in his step and a weird grin on his face. He honestly half-expects the waiter to bypass them and be going to a different table, maybe back to the kitchen, even - but he makes it straight to their table without fail.

“I just wanted to let you know,” the waiter hurries to say as if pressed on time, “that we do have a dessert menu if you guys are interested in checking it out? I know, I forgot to mention it before I gave you the check.”

Zitao sighs to himself, eyebrows arching pitifully as the prominent swell of his belly screams at him no more, but Luhan being the stronger of the two, glances up from the check and gives their waiter a grateful look. “Oh, sure. We’re not in a hurry.”

He frowns. Well, technically they are, at least a little bit. His mother will be asleep in two hours. 

“Alright, here you are,” the waiter says as he takes the menu out from his underarm and places it on the table, and Luhan reaches for it first. “I’ll give you a minute to look, yeah? Do you want me to take the check now and I’ll give you a separate single tab for the dessert?”

“You can do that?” Zitao asks softly, and the waiter’s eyes meet his as the guy smiles sheepishly, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“I can do whatever works for you,” he says, more so at Zitao rather than at the two of them, and it kind of creeps Zitao out, if he’s being perfectly honest. When he glances over, Luhan is gazing through the menu with a pensive gaze and the air between the three of them begins to thicken. 

“Can I get,” Luhan speaks up, and Zitao has half a mind to not say anything at all and let Luhan order nothing for him, “an ice cream sundae, please? Vanilla.”

The waiter flips open his booklet and begins to write down the order, and Luhan closes the menu and sets it off to the edge of the table. “And anything for the lady?” 

Zitao’s stomach does a little flip as he sits up just a little bit to speak, but Luhan beats him to it as he says, “Oh, nothing, thank you. She isn’t hungry.”

However, the waiter gives them a strange look - almost annoyed - yet takes the menu nonetheless. “Are you sure? We can bring her coffee, tea, a milkshake?”

He rolls his eyes. That’s the second time he’d been offered a milkshake today, and he wonders how long it’ll be before he stops liking milkshakes altogether. “I’m full, but thank you,” he speaks up for himself, and the waiter offers him a haphazard simper and nods his head as manners. 

“No problem, it’ll be right out along with your extra tab, alright?”

Something isn’t right today with these men getting so flustered and choked up around him. Surely he isn’t that attractive - he wasn’t a breathtaking guy to boot, so how would he make a better girl? He’d say he looks decent, but nothing that would make people kiss the very ground he walked on. Is this a dream? 

When the waiter takes his foretold leave and walks away with the books in his hand, Luhan folds his hands on the table and passes him a pitying look. “Sorry about that,” he says with an awkward crook of the lips. “Don’t worry, if he acts inappropriately I can complain to the manager and have him fired.”

“It’s fine,” he sighs and crosses one leg over the other. Still, after all this time, having his dick tucked down in his pants isn’t exactly unbearable. “I’m just… a little uncomfortable.”

“I know,” his best friend offers a soft little sigh. “I wish I could make them not be like this, but unfortunately I can’t. But don’t worry, I’m your boyfriend for the day so nothing is going to happen to you. Anyway, I’m gonna go use the restroom, alright? I’ll be back soon.”

Zitao watches as he slides himself out of the booth seat and walks off towards the bathroom, and he watches with bated humor as the guy attracts eyes around him and with Luhan it makes genuine sense because the guy can be a full-blown ten with a nice outfit and his hair and makeup done, and Zitao - well, he thinks of himself as maybe a strong seven-and-a-half. 

He’s always found it funny just how many females seem to take a liking to Luhan whenever they’re in public, and as two very openly gay men, neither of them take offense to how many eyes they do or do not attract. Luhan, however, seems to be a favorite among women while Zitao seems to be a favorite among men, which Zitao would expect to be the other way around. His friend is shorter than he is, and is more feminine looking than he is, which Zitao would expect to be a favorited trait of gay men. Zitao himself prefers a man taller and stronger than he, considering his past with anxiety, and _definitely_ a man more talkative than he because Zitao is terrible at creating conversation. 

He’s begun to wonder if maybe he should try to use the bathroom as well before they leave - and he goes through a flurry of emotions about using the bathroom, unsure if the women’s bathroom would be the place to go or if he would get kicked out of the men’s - when the waiter returns with his friend’s sundae in hand, and the checkbook under his arm.

“Here you go,” the waiter says as he places both items down, and gives Zitao a bright smile as he continues by saying, “Enjoy, and have a good night.”

Raising an eyebrow, Zitao watches him walk away. Does he know something that Zitao should know about? Is there something everyone isn’t telling him? Has his disguise fallen apart? Suddenly Zitao has the urge to run to the bathroom and look at himself in the mirror, but he’s sure that Luhan would have either told him something was amiss or fixed it himself were anything out of place. Sighing, he reaches for the check to look it over. The dessert was three dollars, and he looks up over the edge of the checkbook at the sundae in Luhan’s spot with a shiny silver spoon placed on the rim of the base plate. When he removes the check from the book, however, something catches his eye that makes him flip it over to look at the back, and his shoulders sink as he rolls his eyes.

It’s a phone number scribbled in black pen with an accompanying message just underneath it: _Call me sometime : )_

Frustrated and tired, he slips the check back into the book and drops it down onto the table in annoyance, and crosses his arms over his chest. 

When Luhan returns from the bathroom, Zitao doesn’t tell him what the waiter’s done, and as Luhan brings it up to the front to pay, he doesn’t even tell the manager what the waiter’s done. Karma is real, he tells himself, and the guy will get what’s coming to him, as he grabs onto his best friend’s arm when they leave the restaurant and smirks in recollection about what he’d written on the back of the check.

_Get lost, I’m gay._

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I can’t wait to upload these pictures,” Luhan says when they enter Zitao’s apartment after having changed clothes and headed to the hospital for an hour, and Zitao shucks off his shoes by the door and sighs. What a repeat of this morning.

He initiates the classic Flop Onto The Couch move as he sighs in exhaustion, ready at any moment to fall asleep and call it a night - but he doesn’t want to be rude to Luhan by passing out the second they get home. Sure, Luhan will be staying the night but Zitao likes to tidy up just a little bit and make sure everyone is showered and clean before going to sleep. Still in a hoodie and his jeans - and with every last bit of makeup and fake hair devoid from his body - he nuzzles his face into the tweed of the couch cushions and makeshifts a divot for himself to sleep in like a baby bird. 

“Tired already?” Luhan asks him with a little laugh, and Zitao gives him a whiny groan muffled into the couch. “Come on, champ, we gotta talk about that job. We promised.”

“Ugh, _fine_.”

He rolls over onto his back and watches as his best friend sinks into the chair beside him and sets the forgotten camera down on the table. He watches as Luhan takes the initiative to procure the SD card and open up the boy’s laptop in tandem, and press the card into the upload slot. Truthfully, Zitao’s been trying to ignore and forget about the inevitable, hoping that somehow they would come to a mutual conclusion that this dressing-up lifestyle just wasn’t for him, but Luhan had done nothing of the sort. When he weighs the options, something like this would be beneficial financially but would be heavily risky because at any given time, things could go south for him and if he were to get caught, Zitao is worried that the law will be involved and he will go to jail for impersonation. He knows people lie on their résumés all the time about their work experience, but he doesn’t exactly think it probable to lie on a résumé about your gender when applying for a gender-specific position. If he were applying as waitstaff again or even a deli clerk, it more than likely wouldn’t matter - but this is an exposé position. He will be on display for the entire world to see, and it’s such a big position that if something like this were to get exposed, it would surely create a scandal and maybe even some lawsuits. Truthfully, Zitao is scared shitless.

And then if he gets into trouble with the law and will have to fork over a ton of money, what will happen to his mother? He knows Luhan is rich, but Luhan doesn’t have every last bit of money in the world. If Zitao’s silly mistakes ended up being responsible for his best friend going bankrupt, Zitao would never forgive himself.

“Hey, can you keep it down?” Luhan chuckles suddenly, and the boy glances up at him from his lax position across the couch, limbs sprawled out carelessly. “I can hear you thinking from here. What’s wrong?”

The more he thinks about it, it’s much more than _I’m scared this isn’t going to work._ It’s _I’m worried about the payment_ and _I don’t want to go to jail,_ and also _I don’t want mother to die_ and _I don’t want to make you go broke._ While not exactly a people-pleaser, Zitao has too soft of a heart to be selfish. “It’s just…” he sighs and leans his head on crossed arms on the cushion. “I’m worried this will all come back to bite me in the ass.”

“I told you it’ll be fine, what is there to worry about? Even if something happens, I’ll be here to support you.”

“It’s not that,” he says. “It’s - I’m worried I’ll get found out, and I’m worried that me getting found out will… get the law involved. And I’ll be sued or something.”

“You should be _fine_ ,” Luhan promises. “Even if they over-charge you, I’ll pay for it, okay? Just - try your best, that’s all. And hey, once things start feeling like you’re in fight or flight, you can always quit and we can start again. Who knows? Job positions open up all the time after you initially look.”

Melancholy, he whispers, “I don’t want my mother to die.”

“Tao,” his best friend repeats, and this time the boy looks up to meet his gaze. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to either of you. Okay? Whatever happens, I will pay for it. I promise, but I need you to help yourself, too, so I really need you to take this job, Tao.”

“I thought you said I could think about whether I wanted to go for it or back out.”

“Well, you can always back out. Nobody is holding a gun to your head to force you to apply. It’s up to you and your morals to decide which one is more important to you - your pride or your mother. Like I said, I will help you the entire way even if you need a little bit of extra money every month, but I want you to do what’s best for you.”

He sighs because he is being a little bit piteous. Although it’s a great risk, this is nearly an unpassable opportunity that he needs to take if he wants his mother to be alive just a little while longer. He doesn’t want to think about what could go wrong, and knows he needs to replace his thoughts with all that could go right - like getting a raise, and sailing smoothly now that his best friend taught him how to tuck and had given him a little bit of practice walking in women’s shoes. He nods, and tells Luhan they can go ahead with the plan.

Yet - Luhan isn’t sure Zitao is entirely convinced and shakes his head in the silence as he reaches for the boy’s computer. “Do you really think you’re not an attractive female, Tao?”

He stills, blinking, before frowning slightly. He’d gotten more used to looking at himself as the day wore on, but even then when everything had culminated and it had been time to get out of it for the night, he still didn’t think he was perfectly selling. He still thought he looked like a boy with long hair in makeup and women’s clothing - but is that because he is too masculine, or is it because he’s so used to seeing his own face as a man? 

“I think I’m not bad,” the boy replies, shrugging. “But I don’t think I looked like a female. I thought I looked like a guy in makeup.”

He sets his tongue in his cheek, “Rate your girl-self on a scale of one to ten?”

What? “Um… like, a six.”

His best friend nods, thoughtful, and opens the computer to begin typing something into it. Zitao’s heart wavers, wondering just what Luhan is trying to do - and he fears that Luhan is going to fill out the application for him and Zitao isn’t ready, has barely even had a chance to sit on it and here he is being dragged along against his better judgment - when Luhan asks, “What’s your blog password?”

Is he going to tell his followers about the job offer, or something? God, that’s a _horrible_ idea! “What are you doing? No, don’t go on there, please, I’m not ready - ”

“ _Tao_.” He presses, and the boy slowly begins to sit up in his spot on the couch, suddenly awake and stone-cold sober. “Just _trust me_. Okay? Let me into your blog, I won’t fuck anything up, I promise.”

He’s really at his wit’s end with his own anxiety but he knows he’s got to do it sooner or later - just like ripping off a band-aid. “Fine, give me.”

He lets the guy into his blog account with the notion of trust that he won’t do anything to literally ruin Zitao’s life, and his best friend sets the computer onto his lap so Zitao cannot watch on. This goes on for a few seconds where he can see the reflection of the screen in his friend’s reading glasses before the blonde says, “I want to make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

This time, the blonde straightens his spine and smooths out his posture, and looks up at Zitao over the edge of the laptop’s screen, “You said your main issue is you don’t think you’d be attractive enough to pull it off, right? So I’ll make you a deal. If your post of your pictures from earlier this morning got more than fifty likes - which is just under how many followers you have, and you usually get how many likes on each landscape?”

“Maybe like, ten.”

“Right, ten. So, if your pictures from today get fifty or more likes, you admit you look good as a female, and you apply for the job. If the post has less than fifty, then I’ll let you go to bed with the knowledge that you’re not cut out to be a woman. Sound good?”

His lips twist in slight concern as he asks, “No strings attached?”

“No strings attached.”

It’s a simple proposition, and he genuinely prides Luhan in knowing just how to get out of arguing with him because honestly, he could go on forever. “Fine,” he says softly, as he pulls his legs up to his chest and rests his hands on his ankles. “Deal’s on.”

The agreement resonates thickly in the air, as Zitao basically hands over every last ounce of his trust and gives in completely to desperation. This is it - this is where he makes the choice of a lifetime, where he’ll find out if their bright idea will come to fruition or if he was just hyping himself up. What is probably only inches of moral movement in reality, to Zitao feels like miles, and there’s a split second where he debates calling it off, debates snatching his computer from his best friend’s hands and telling him to forget it that way Zitao won’t have to know just how ugly people think he is, but he refrains. This is important, this is vital. He needs to hear this no matter what.

And what makes his heart stop is when he sees the very moment Luhan pulls up the post because his body freezes and the breath he’s inhaled gets stuck in his chest, and Zitao can’t tell if it’s a good sign or a bad sign. “Do you want to look, or do you want me to read it out?” Luhan asks him, giving him the option of doing it the hard way or taking the easy way out. Having Luhan tell him would help with the nervous feeling in his stomach, but it would also feel like cheating because Zitao didn’t face it head-on.

“I’ll look,” he decides quietly, and his best friend chuckles as he passes the computer over with both hands. Zitao knows he can’t be that popular online because even the pictures of his regular self only get a maximum of fifteen clicks. He doesn’t get comments, either - he assumes nobody feels compelled to compliment someone who is always brooding away in black-and-white and posting pictures of decrepit and colorful scenery. It’s not like he models regularly. 

Which is why his heart practically leaps into his throat when the post loads in front of his eyes: _172 likes._

He’s dreaming. He’s _definitely_ dreaming. There’s no way in hell he’d be looking at this if he were awake.

“Impressive?” Luhan asks him suddenly, and Zitao hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath too until it trembles out of his chest, jittery and slightly choked. “What do you think?”

It doesn’t feel real. He reaches up to rub his eyes and hopefully rub the illusion away before he looks again, and nope, the number is still the same, and there are even comments this time - comments like _oh goodness, is that really your sister? she’s beautiful!_ and _never feel insecure, darling, you’re gorgeous,_ and when he decides to move his mouse over to the right side of the page to check his follower count, he’s stunned to see he’s at nearly a hundred follows already. This can’t be _real._

“Now will you believe me?” His best friend continues with a little laugh, and Zitao glances up at him with glossy eyes. “I told you I wasn’t wrong, and there’s your proof you wanted. I told you that you were a pretty girl. And we had a deal.”

That’s right, they had a deal. He proved Zitao wrong, so now Zitao has to pay up on his end of the bargain and apply for the job. Besides, Zitao is never one to chicken out of a bet when he swore on it fair and square. “Can you,” he swallows as he attempts to speak, pulse racing in his throat. He has no idea why he’s so nervous but this feels like the first day of school all over again, “can you at least help me apply?”

Then, the blonde just smiles and crosses his arms over his chest as his eyebrows raise. “What, you didn’t really expect me to make you do it all alone, did you? Oh, kid, you underestimate me. Move over.”

And with Zitao’s trust in his hands, he takes the first step - the first leap - in changing the kid’s life for good.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Well, first of all, do I go in as Zitao, or?” Zitao asks as the application sheet loads on the screen of his laptop. “Zitao is a masculine name and I’m pretty sure people aren’t stupid.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right,” his best friend says. “Well, we could give you a fake name. That’s what aliases are for.”

“I’m really bad with names so you’re going to have to come up with it, Han,” Zitao tells him, and his best friend rolls his eyes and shakes his head as he turns his attention back to the computer with a thoughtful expression on his face. Zitao wonders distantly why he hadn’t thought before of the fact that it would be much too easy for his employers to trace him and expose him with the name Zitao since everyone that has ever met him has known him as Zitao. Unfortunately, his mother never had any other children for Zitao to steal the names of.

“What about Yingtao?” Luhan asks him, and Zitao’s brows furrow. “Like, you know, the word _cherry_. Like how your name means peach.”

“Is that a feminine name?”

“It can be. Cherries are pretty feminine.”

“We’re sexualizing fruit now?”

“Listen,” Luhan laughs and raises a hand as he signals for the boy to calm himself. “I think we should stick with something relatively close to your name because sibling names can sometimes work like that, and this way if somebody calls you Tao, people won’t get confused and lose their minds. Gosh, I have the best ideas.”

“Well,” Zitao grabs him by the arm as his friend begins to type in the kid’s email and house address. It’s great and all that Luhan was so generous to help him because truthfully, it’s petrifying applying for a new job. It feels as though all of his previous experience went flying out of the window the second he pressed apply. “Say I _do_ go by Yingtao. What - what about my résumé?” 

Though, he can tell that his friend doesn’t quite understand his question, or perhaps why he is asking it, judging by the confused glance he shoots him. “We write down everywhere you’ve previously worked, and we print it out and bring it to the interview along with your degree?”

“No, I mean - ” he sighs, wishing he could portray what he was feeling better, “what about my… gender and name and stuff?”

Ah. “We lie.”

Well, yeah, he got that. He thought that was obvious. “No, I mean, _how_ do we lie? They’ll no doubt want my birth certificate and my social security number for taxes and stuff, and my birth certificate says I’m male and also says my name is Zitao.”

Oh, that’s what he means. Luhan doesn’t have very much experience in forgery - just a little bit from a few months ago when he helped a friend land a job in brassiere crafting which required previous professional tailoring experience. His friend hadn’t been a seamster for very long, but was in fashion school and did have taught experience. However, he’s not sure he ever forged more than a regular résumé - and definitely not a birth certificate, at that. “I could try to forge it,” he says, and Zitao rolls his eyes. 

“If I wake up one day and you’re behind bars, don’t be surprised when I don’t bail you out.”

He laughs, “Don’t worry, I’d take a bullet for you, kid. This is all for you and your mother’s wellbeing.”

“Okay, well, say we do forge it. What then? These guys are professionals, won’t they, like - _know_?”

“Not if you’re good enough at the forgery. The worse you are at it, obviously the less real it’s going to look. I have a little bit of previous experience, but not much, so I might have to work on this all night for you.”

“Uh, you need sleep. I don’t think so.”

“Tao,” he laughs. “I’m fine, trust me. This is how it’ll play out, alright? We forge your birth certificate. Yay. Perfect. Your social, obviously there’s nothing I can do about that but they don’t really use that to look at your gender or your name. After that, we send the application online, and we hope and pray for the best. Then after that, we can start getting your hairy ass waxed.”

“Okay, but what if - ” he stills, frowning. “Wait, what?”

“ _Nothing_!”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Wait, no!”

Luhan’s grabbing the phone before Zitao can catch him, a literal shit-eating grin plastered across his lips. “Why? What’s wrong? What if you like having smooth legs?”

“I’ll be a hairy woman, then! I don’t want to be waxed!”

“Trust me, it’ll be fine. I’ll call a salon, they’re professionals, they’ll know what to do.”

“No!” He tries again, hands shaking. “No salon. No.”

The blonde frowns, his grip on the phone slackening. Has he upset him? That hadn’t been his intention at all, but he had assumed that having perfectly smooth legs would give Zitao a confidence boost, considering he had been too shy to even go outside in the skirt because of his legs. He’d thought Zitao would have liked it. “Would you rather me do it? I can make a sugar wax, and plus I don’t really want you to hurt yourself. I don’t think melted skin is exactly a fashion-forward look.”

The statement helps cool Zitao’s nerves just a bit, the tremble in his hands stilling as his breathing slows. Stupid fucking anxiety. “What do you mean a sugar wax?”

“You know, sugar and lemon juice. Boil it, and it becomes waxy and sticky. It also hurts less.”

“How do you know that?”

Cough. “I waxed my ass once.”

“On second thought, I’ll just stop asking questions. Thanks.”

He watches as Luhan walks him through the steps of making said wax, as he eyeballs a hefty amount of sugar to pour into a pot, and lets Zitao pour in the lemon juice. Just enough to make it wet, he says, and Zitao doesn’t even want to think about how many innuendos his friend has made today. The mixture soon begins to boil, and Zitao’s hands shake nearly enough to drop the wooden spoon on the floor. “Why am I agreeing to this?” He asks aloud in the middle of stirring, and his best friend has the audacity to smirk at him. “This doesn’t seem exactly fair.”

“It’s not supposed to be fair. It’s supposed to help you because life isn’t always fair. And trust me, I wish I could make it fairer for you, Tao, but I’m trying to make it more possible to keep you out of trouble, here.”

He sighs, “At this point, I should’ve picked the sex work. Maybe at least then I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my pride so much.”

Luhan doesn’t answer him this time, and he watches as his best friend removes the pot from the stove and lets the wax cool briefly, the bubbles minimizing and settling down. “Now, you obviously don’t want to put this on you immediately,” he explains as he brings the pot over to the dining table and instructs Zitao to sit. “We’re not trying to burn you, here. And the hair always grows back but it grows back after… let’s see, with your hair type… I’d say maybe a month? Two months?”

He blanches, “Two months? You mean I’ll have to do this _again_?”

“Tao.”

“Sorry.”

The blonde gives the wax a few moments to cool as he stirs it occasionally, and Zitao watches as the stirring becomes gradually slower and slower, as if it’s taking more strength to do so as time wears on. Then, his best friend reaches out a palm and says, “Give me your arm. I’ll start there.”

Zitao’s heart immediately goes from zero to a hundred, rabbiting behind his ribcage as he lays his wrist in his best friend’s grasp, and as Luhan pulls up his sleeve as if preparing to give him a vaccination. 

“Now,” the blonde says as he dips the spoon back into the pot and brings it up, long strings of sticky, viscous wax dripping from the ladle, and he begins to spread just a bit of it on the boy’s forearm. It’s still quite warm, and Zitao hisses instinctively. “I’d recommend staying as still as possible and closing your eyes. The first time always hurts.”

Then - with no preamp, no warning, no time to adjust to the quickly hardening wax - his best friend _yanks_ , and Zitao’s screams of pain reward them with angry knocks from their neighbors on adjacent walls.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

He’s sore when it’s over, face chilled over with wet tears and skin angry and warm and red, all down his legs and his arms and even his chest. When Luhan had given him the option of doing his groin and armpits himself, he’d cried and begged not to, and being too kind-hearted to continue inflicting pain on his best friend, Luhan had agreed and warned him that he would then have to shave those areas on a day to day basis. Not entirely ready to give up his masculine hairiness, Zitao is depressed. 

“How do you feel?” Luhan asks him gently, almost therapeutically as if psychiatrically. Through the blur of tears, Zitao can make out the expression of remorse and well-deserved worry. 

Truthfully, he’s cold. He’d never thought that removing that much body hair would make you cold; Zitao had always thought that body hair would have no bearing on internal temperatures because humans aren’t like bears where they’re covered inches thick in fur. “Cold,” he mumbles, shivering in his seat. Has his apartment always been this chilly? “Also weirdly warm.”

“It’s the burn,” his best friend says, as he carries the pot of hardened wax to the sink and runs the tap. “Put some lotion on it, it’ll help your pores heal.”

And Zitao does as instructed, squirting some of the white lotion provided onto his palms, before smoothing it over the tender, aching skin. Is this really what girls have to go through to be pretty? This doesn’t seem like a very fair trade.

“Do you like it, though?” He asks in tandem, and Zitao gives him a pressed look. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this,” Zitao says as his fingers run over a tender spot behind his knee, muscles twitching in response to the pain, “but I don’t normally prefer to wax my legs if I can help it. So, no, I don’t really like it.”

“Alright, sheesh, you don’t have to be a party pooper,” Luhan continues. “Anyway, it’s pretty late, and I’d recommend you put on some conforming clothes to sleep in, like pants and a long-sleeve that don’t have much movement. You might hurt yourself tossing and turning. It’s like a sunburn, kind of. And besides, we can’t have you dying on us. We promised we wouldn’t kill ourselves unless it was together, so you’re not allowed to go until I do.”

“I hate you,” Zitao mutters under his breath, and he pouts and massages in the leftover lotion on his palms into the skin on his chest. “Like, a fuckin’ lot.”

“I love you too, kid.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Trays are stacked on their sides in the left bin. We organize plates by size, so large plates are stacked upwards on the shelf and small plates are stacked upward next to them. Drinking cups are arranged in rows on the middle shelf, tall in the back and short in the front, all placed upside-down for stability’s sake. Bowls are stacked in the right bin on the bottom shelf, and utensils are in the under-shelf drawer.”

He bows, eyes trained on the many vast rows of cutlery in the commissary. “Are they washed by hand or by machine?”

“Both - we leave it up to you to decide which you would prefer. The machine can hold around fifty plates and ten bowls at any one time, so often times both are utilized for speedy production.”

Ah, that’s understandable. Can’t have already-sick patients ingesting unsterilized germs from other already-sick patients. “How long does the washer run per cycle?”

“Approximately sixty minutes.”

She steps carefully over to the washer, heels clicking on the linoleum, and pulls the lip of the door back to reveal the racking shelves, empty and pristine and white. “The machine does not have a dry setting, so dishes are to be hand-dried fresh from the racks, and are recommended to be placed on a towel-covered parquet to catch additional drippage.”

“Thank you, miss.”

“If you need me, just shout. I will be in the commissary.”

The door closes behind her and he returns his gaze to the amassed pile of soiled dishes in the basin, and grabs a fresh sponge from underneath the cabinet and a rag and gets to work. _We cannot promise you much, but we can offer you minimum wage per hour and you are welcome to work as long as you feel the desire to and stop when you see fit._ Zitao, ever the one to struggle with monetary values, was not one to turn down a payment offer, no matter how small. He would take anything he could get his hands on at this point - even the littlest bit would have an effect towards his mother’s bills. 

Still - dishwashing could perhaps be considered less than ideal, as Zitao gets a whiff of old, soggy broccoli and gags violently as he hides his face in his elbow. Don’t they know that broccoli is good for you?

It had been three days - hold on, let him think; if today is Thursday, and they applied together on Sunday evening, then - no, _four_ days since applying, and Zitao had been on edge all week. Each and every night when he hops in the shower before bed, he’s met with his regularly-scheduled Emotional Breakdown with his old friend Anxiety as she reads him her favorite book _Panic Attacks: The Destroyer of Worlds._ Zitao last left off on chapter four, and finally sick of being alone with his own thoughts, Zitao reached out to the hospital with desperation in his voice as he applied as a volunteer for anything and everything they could offer him. Although very regular hospital activities, Zitao’s only two options were washing dishes or cleaning bedpans. 

He’d phoned Luhan during his first attack on Monday evening and had successfully managed to be coaxed back down to earth as his throat muscles had finally slackened and he could finally breathe once more thanks to Luhan’s patience. What he had thought was a one-time occurrence ended up being nightly, and he had been too self-piteous to ask his best friend for help during every single one. 

_Trays in the bin to the right - no, to the left. Plates stacked on the shelf._

Aside from being wrought with the ever-blinding fear that he’s going to get a knock on his door from the police telling him he’s being arrested for forging legal documents and impersonating someone who doesn’t exist, Zitao also has to deal with the constant worry that something with his application process is going to go wrong and he’s going to be turned away without even a first glance, that his efforts for a better job are going to come up short because maybe they’re already full, maybe he doesn’t have enough experience, or maybe his photography isn’t impressive enough. Worse - what if he doesn’t look convincing enough?

He thinks about what might happen should the job for some reason go south. He obviously would still need the money, since his mother’s cancer isn’t just going to disappear with a wish on a star and a cross of his fingers. He might have to end up delving into prostitution and letting strangers do with his body as they wish in order for him to afford the hospital’s prices. He doesn’t even have any idea what a good sex work wage is, but he has a feeling he might have to price himself very highly and even _that_ feels too expensive. Maybe it’s because he is not an overtly sexual person, but paying a ridiculous amount of money just to have sex with someone sounds insane. 

And even then - what if that isn’t enough, either?

Weighing his options, although absolutely crazy and something no _normal_ person would think to do, this job really is Zitao’s only hope. 

He grabs a tall stack of heavy, wide plates with both hands and groans to himself as he lifts them onto the shelf, and winces when they clatter loudly into their spot. Panic runs through him white-hot as he thinks for a split-second that they’ll break the shelf and fall and shatter all over the ground - but they stay put. The wooden shelving does not creak, and the plates do not clack and creak anymore. 

Which is why when his phone begins to double-buzz in his back pocket, he’s not sure his heart can take many more surprises in the same day, as he fishes it out and sighs when he reads the caller identity.

“Han, I’m at the hospital. What do you need?”

There’s a bit of shuffling on the other end, almost as if Luhan is adjusting his position or is messing with plastic bags or something. “ _News!_ ” His best friend says on the other line. “ _I’ve got news!_ ”

He sighs. “We both know my mom is still just as sick, so don’t get me excited like this.”

“ _No, it’s not that! You’ve got an interview first thing tomorrow morning!_ ”

A glass falls from his hand and shatters on the linoleum, loud and crackling and shrill. _No way._

“...Tomorrow?”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Han, I really don’t think I can do this.”

Zitao stands - long, dark hair curled and primped into an elegant bun on the back of his head and sinuous waves down his back, a crisp, sleek white blouse buttoned up to his throat and his waist cinched in with a soft tweed pencil skirt in a pretty mulberry, practically towering over his best friend in little black heels with gold accentuation to match the belt atop the skirt’s rim - his hands in Luhan’s grasp, his throat feeling as though he were being strangled.

“Shh,” his best friend coos, entirely underdressed and short stood before Zitao’s extravagant elegance. “You can, I _know_ you can. You can do it.”

“No, I can’t, I really can’t - ” he says with a pitched wheeze, eyes watering and hands shaking and if he continues to stand, Zitao isn’t entirely sure his knees are going to be able to hold him. 

“Tao, you _can_. Okay?” Luhan reaches forward this time and places both palms on his best friend’s cheeks. “Breathe, come on. Breathe with me. In. Out.”

He breathes in tandem, counts three in, counts three out, and repeat. _Focus on me, focus on breathing. Don’t think about the colors, don’t think about the air - think about me._

“You can do it, Tao,” Luhan coaxes in a soft voice, and Zitao takes a shuddery breath inward that feels like cannonballs to lungs, a war of rich ages against ribs and troops of millions marching up the chords of his throat. “That’s it. Just look at me. Breathe.”

“What,” Zitao manages, voice garbled and strained, and Luhan’s thumb rubs over his wrist in slow motions, “what if they know when they see me? What if - what if I’m - too tall, or - too muscular, or too wide?”

“You’re not, it’s okay. You’ll be perfectly fine.”

“My - my Adam’s apple! What if they see it? I - I need a scarf, a tie, _anything_!”

“Tao, _stop_ ,” he presses again, gripping tighter on the boy’s wrists as Zitao begins to cry softly. “Come on, Tao, your makeup is too pretty to cry in. Plus, it’s not waterproof. Come on, breathe. You look fine, okay? You don’t look too dude-ish, and I can’t see your Adam’s apple from here. Okay? Be lucky you don’t have a big one.”

Shakily, he takes one of his hands back and lays it on the base of his neck, and lets out a trembling sigh. _Come on, Zitao, you can do this. You’ve come this far already._ He tries his very hardest to convince his inner voice that everything is okay, that he will be okay, but there’s a frigidity low in his gut that tells him otherwise. “They’ll know,” he whispers, eyes trained on the ground and lips trembling. “They’ll know I’m not a girl. They’ll know.”

“That’s why you have to sell them, Tao,” his best friend sighs and lets the boy’s hands slip through his fingers as he takes a half-step back. “Look, look at me, okay? Okay. Now, first we have to work on raising your voice ‘cause the higher it is, the more convincing you’ll be, okay?”

Zitao blinks, blurry eyes beginning to clear. “What do you mean raising my voice?”

“Just,” his best friend’s lips twist in thought. “Try tightening your larynx a little bit, and try sweetening up your voice if you can. Make it as sugary as possible.”

A raised eyebrow. “Like this?”

Luhan shakes his head; Zitao’s voice hadn’t raised at all that time, merely sounding more strained than before. “No, not quite. It’s like… okay, not to get _not-safe-for-work_ , but it’s like if you were to whimper and it’s like how that makes your voice smaller and more high-pitched if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean?”

“Well, if you’re not referring to me going around making sex noises twenty-four-seven, then yeah, I’m pretty sure I catch your drift,” Zitao reaches up with a knuckle to gently dab at his under-eyes, carefully wiping away his tears as gingerly as he can as to not smudge the makeup. “So, _like this_?”

His larynx constricts and raises, voice shrilling out in the back of his throat, and Luhan nods and gives him a grin. “Yes, just like that. See? You’re more convincing already. Alright, next, remember that your name isn’t _Zitao_ , got it? What’s your name?”

A sigh. “Yingtao.”

“Exactly. You’re Yingtao now, okay? And you _cannot_ forget it. Don’t blow your own cover by being stupid, alright?”

“I know, I know. I’m Yingtao now, I know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Huang Yingtao.”

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t really hear you, you need to speak up.”

“Don’t make me kick your ass,” Zitao laughs through the tears in his eyes, and his best friend smiles from ear to ear as his cheeks shine and he reaches out to squeeze Zitao’s shoulder. 

“Make me proud, kid,” Luhan says with a second gentle squeeze. “Okay?”

Zitao nods, much calmer and warm-chested and thankful that Luhan always knows exactly what to do to get him out of his episodes. _Yingtao_ , he thinks to himself. _Huang Yingtao_. He’s got a feeling the name will grow on him with time, and maybe he will grow to find it pretty, even. That is - until a noise down the hallway startles him and he watches as a woman with sleek, tied-back hair steps out of a set of glass doors. 

“Huang Yingtao?” She asks, and Zitao’s stomach drops.

“She’s coming!” Luhan calls out to the lady, and Zitao - suddenly queasy and literally _seconds_ away from vomiting all over his brand-new clothes - begins to shake once again. “No no, calm down. Breathe.”

“I can’t,” Zitao repeats, plummeting back to square one. “I can’t, I - ”

“Tao,” he whispers quickly. “We don’t have time, okay? Trust me, you can do it. Okay? I know you. You’ve got fight in you, and you’ve got balls. _Literally_. You know you can do this.”

“I - ” he starts anxiously, looking around. He knows he can’t dawdle like this, because not only is he unaware of whether or not his boss even has patience for mental illnesses in the workforce, but it’s more than likely considered unprofessional to make his boss have to wait for him to show up for an interview. “Okay.”

“You can do it,” Luhan forces a tight-lipped little grin. “Okay?”

Zitao nods, and takes a deep breath as he tries to will the nausea in his gut away. 

“Don’t show them that you’re nervous,” Luhan whispers before he leaves. “It’ll make you seem more inexperienced. You got this, kid.”

His best friend returns to the waiting chairs at the mouth of the hallway and retrieves Zitao’s portfolio to hand it to him, and Zitao bows in thanks.

When he turns back around, pressing the heavy portfolio to his chest to both structure himself and hide from the lady’s eyes, still stood outside the glass doors with her foot propped up against one to keep it open, he takes a cautious step forward. This is a stupid idea, a horrible, no-good, _terrible_ idea, so why is he still doing it? 

 The lady, proper and prim and more than likely a secretary or something of the like, bows as he passes by her and gives him a thin-lipped smile that reflects in her eyes, and he sincerely hopes that everyone in this establishment also has hearts as gentle as she.

When he enters, he’s shocked to see that it’s not exactly an office but not quite a presentational room, either, somewhere in the middle with blank projection screens on each side wall and an elegant table-desk hybrid in the middle towards the back wall, at which sit three people that Zitao assumes are the ones interviewing him. Carefully, shakily, he steps forward and when the glass door behind him closes with a shuddery click, he grips the portfolio with both hands and bows deeply.

Should he introduce himself? No, don’t they already know his name? Isn’t that how the secretary called for him - or was it on her clipboard? Do they need to be told his name again? Surely they’ve seen his application, and surely they probably have a list of applicants to interview today, right?

The room is silent enough to hear a pin drop, and Zitao watches as the table of people - a lady on the right, and two men next to her in the middle and left seats, the one in the middle more broad-shouldered and sharp-looking, the one on the left smaller and perhaps shorter than Zitao himself - analyze him for a few seconds by scanning him up and down with their eyes, and Zitao makes a mental note that there doesn’t seem to be any trace of pity or pride or shock at his appearance, so maybe he is starting to be more convincing. He hopes. 

The lady on the right is the first one to speak by saying, “Huang Yingtao, correct?” and Zitao watches as the man on the left adjusts his spectacles atop his nose. 

“Yes,” he says in his higher voice, larynx tight. 

“Welcome, Yingtao. Is that your portfolio?”

“Oh, yes,” he chips quickly and steps forward to hand it to her. Up close, Zitao can feel the scrutiny of their intense stares on him which only makes him more self-conscious - especially from the man in the middle. Broad-shouldered, perfectly coiffed, and scary. “In it is also my Associate’s Degree in Photography and my legal documentation. I put it in there for organization,  if… that’s okay.”

“It’s perfect,” the lady says in a warm voice, the slightest smile gracing her lips. “We always love having employees who are punctual and clean. Yingtao, my name is Im Jinah, the Chief Financial Officer, or more commonly, the Treasurer. I am the overseer of employee surcharges and payrolls. This,” she says as she points to the man in the left seat, who raises his hand in a little wave, “is Mr. Zhang Yixing, the President’s Secretary.”

“Hello, Yingtao,” Mr. Zhang says as he extends a hand, and Zitao nervously takes it to shake. 

“And this our company president, Mr. Kris Wu.”

The lady gestures to the man sat in the middle, and Zitao’s chest begins to tingle. _Kris Wu._ Isn’t that the same name he and Luhan had seen on those clothes in that one store?

“Mr. Wu is the creator and overseer for his brand here, KW,” she explains, and Zitao realizes then that albeit the fact that his theory had been true, Mr. Wu hadn’t been the slightest bit courteous to him by offering a handshake or even a warm _hello_. “Mr. Wu is your boss, and also will have every right to demote, promote, or fire you in any circumstance no matter the severity or protest. Do you understand, Yingtao?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Hey, that’s a strong grip you’ve got there,” Mr. Zhang tells him suddenly with a funnily crooked smile on his face. “Do you do any sports?”

He blinks; what? “Oh, I, uh… I took martial arts as a child, and I did gymnastics for a little while in secondary school.” 

“Did you?” Mr. Zhang asks vividly, impressed. “What school did you graduate from?”

“Qingdao No. 1 High School, of Shandong Province,” he says coolly, trying his best to quell the steady beating in his throat. 

“What university?” Mr. Wu in the middle asks him flatly, and Zitao’s heart gives a little twitch at just how deep and smooth the man’s voice is. He must talk a lot, judging by the lack of fry in his voice. 

“Oh, um, I transferred to Beijing University after interning for a year at Wuhan.”

“Interning?” The lady - _Ms. Im, right?_ \- asks him, “You interned this young?”

“I was a volunteer photographer for a charity firm in Yan’an,” he tells them, hands twitching as he tells his story. “I was employed to document those in need to caseworkers to have them report to the spot.”

“You’re such a good person,” Ms. Im tells him with a warm grin, and he can’t but smile back as he thanks her. He wonders idly why Mr. Wu is so quiet, and why he seems to refuse to not only engage in conversation with him like Mr. Zhang and Ms. Im have, yet he seems to refuse to even acknowledge his existence. Did he do something wrong? “Well, Yingtao, we have some questions to ask you regarding this job. How old are you, again?”

“Twenty-three.”

Zitao watches as Mr. Wu begins to sort through the stack of papers on the table in front of him, and he half-expects the man to actually say something to him - but he doesn’t, and Ms. Im continues, “Where are you from?”

“Northeast Qingdao.”

“Alright. Do you live with anybody?”

“No, I rent an apartment on east end with help from my best friend,” he says, and he watches as their eyes minutely change and he wonders if maybe he misspoke.

“Help?” Ms. Im asks. “Are you not financially capable, Yingtao?”

Oh no, here comes the part he hates the most. “No, it’s just…” he looks down at his hands by his lap and struggles to find the words, wondering just exactly how to portray that he is incapable of getting a full-time job with medical lenience and a pay high enough to chip away at his mother’s bills. “I applied because… my - my mother is in the hospital and I’ve been struggling to try to find a job that pays as well as this one to help pay her bills.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Ms. Im consoles. “What’s she sick with?”

“Stage-four ovarian cancer.”

Mr. Zhang gasps, and Zitao - thank God he was observant because if he had blinked or had not been paying attention, would have missed it - notices the way Mr. Wu’s eyebrows seem to furrow for the slimmest of split-seconds before relaxing, almost perplexed. “Goodness gracious. We’re very sorry, Yingtao.”

“It’s okay,” he lies, knowing very well that he hasn’t had the time to accept that his mother is more than likely going to die and that at this point in time, it’s pretty inevitable even with the rigorous and expensive chemotherapy. “I’ve been out of a job for a few months now, but I volunteer sometimes at the hospital for some extra money.”

“Does she go for chemotherapy or genetic therapy?”

“She’s on eight-hundred milligrams of Rheumatrex twice a day, and she gets thirty minutes of radiation therapy once a week.”

“That much?” Ms. Im gasps and covers her mouth with her hand, small and well-manicured and pink-polished. 

“Yes, it’s a very aggressive cancer, unfortunately, and it was stage-three for about half of a year, maybe close to eight months. It just recently vamped up and so they upped the dosages.”

“Have you tried applying other places?”

“Yes, but they either fire me or turn me down because of medical conditions,” he admits, faltering.

Then it’s Mr. Wu who speaks up, and Zitao had forgotten he even had a voice at all when he says, “What medical conditions?”

He bites his lip, “I was diagnosed with panic disorder in late high school when I was about eighteen. I get panic attacks and tend to… kind of, go into episodes where everything blurs and things start to get really saturated and bright, almost over-exposed, and I get very short of breath.”

“Like you’re going to faint,” Ms. Im clarifies, and Zitao nods. “Well, we’re very sorry to hear that, Yingtao. Fortunately, we do not have any qualms about mental illnesses but the decision will be in Mr. Wu’s hands, and not ours.”

“Enough,” Mr. Wu grunts out, and Zitao’s heart practically stops altogether. “We don’t need the sob story.”

Ah, right. “Forgive me. I promise I will work really hard!” he vows aloud, pressing his hands together. “I will do just about any job I can, even if you want me to paint offices or clean coffee machines.”

“You’re applying for a modeling position,” Mr. Wu says as he sits back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest, brute and rude, and it leaves a bad taste in Zitao’s mouth. “Which means you will be required to _model_. Not clean coffee machines.”

Oh. “I’m sorry, sir, I was just volunteering for anything.”

“This is a modeling firm, Miss Huang. Not a hospital for you to volunteer at,” Mr. Wu says as he stands from his seat, and Zitao’s pulse speeds as he registers just how tall his boss actually is, and Zitao is quite a tall person both in height and additionally in heeled shoes. In heels which are probably just under three inches, he debates, his boss might be exactly the same height he is if not mere inches more, and the thought makes the man that much more attractive. Tall, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, and sexy. “And in a modeling firm, you will be required to not only model the clothing which I produce and tailor myself to each individual size, but you will be required to know how to walk.”

“Walk?”

“Being a fashion job,” Mr. Zhang interjects, “you will have to know how to walk a runway.”

 _Oh._ Zitao feels stupid for not thinking about that kind of thing ahead of time or he would have practiced. 

“Which means I need to see how you walk,” Mr. Wu repeats himself, and motions with his hand for Zitao to back up. “Start at the door and walk toward me. Complete it with a one-eighty turn.”

 _Walk._ Surely it can’t be that difficult to do, right? Zitao does a lot of walking on a day-to-day basis. 

He bows politely before turning around and standing just in front of the gold-plated handles on the expensive glass doors. Come on, Zitao, this is your only chance, don’t fuck it up.

When he turns around, he begins to walk in a straight line towards the table, hands at his side, confidence in his steps. _Confidence is key_ , he thinks to himself. _Remember what Luhan said. Confidence is key._ He keeps his eyes unfocused, trying his best to avoid seeing the expressions on their faces because he knows he’s not perfect - he doesn’t know a damn thing about walking a runway and that is entirely his own fault. He should have been more aware of what a modeling firm would be like. 

When he approaches the table, he turns on his heel and begins to walk back toward the door when something catches his attention behind him, between the clicking of his heels on the polished flooring and between the scribbling of pens on paper: _She walks like a newborn deer._

He falters slightly, but regains his composure quickly and walks back his spot in the entrance. That was Mr. Wu’s voice. There’s no mistaking whom that voice came from, not when Mr. Zhang had been biting down on his bottom lip in focus. Suddenly saddened and disheartened, Zitao turns back toward the table and bows. He wants this interview to be over right now, no more, and when he walks back to his original spot several feet away from the table in the middle of the floor, all three are writing and Mr. Wu looks less than pleased. 

“You staggered on the return,” Mr. Wu states, and Zitao knows he fucked up, he would never have been able to cover that up. He very clearly missed a step and jarred the rhythm. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, bowing again, and his heart sinks when he could swear Mr. Wu had just cut his eye at him by the way he glances over at Mr. Zhang and the paper in front of him. 

“We don’t have time for apologies, Yingtao,” he says again, and Zitao idly feels like crying right on the spot. “And as a tip, learn to stop apologizing for things that are easily fixable.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Yingtao,” Ms. Im says, and he looks over at her with slightly blurred eyes. “The results of your performance today will be phoned over to you within a span of seven business days. Here is your portfolio back,” she reaches out with a lax hand, and Zitao walks forward to retrieve the book and holds it to his chest again. “Whether or not you passed your interview today will be delivered to you in a week’s time. Alright?”

So that’s how it is. No _good work_ , no _good job_ , just - _you might not pass_. A tear flits down his cheek as he soaks up the news and forces his body to nod on auto-pilot, and sniffles slightly. “Yes, I understand. Thank you very much.”

“Awe, don’t cry, miss,” Ms. Im coos gently. “We will call you in a week, alright?”

He nods again and presses his knuckles to his eye to wipe up the tears that have formed. Leave it to Zitao, and only Zitao, to turn a completely professional and well-composed event into a waterworks show. 

He is, however, surprised when Mr. Wu begins to walk toward him, but with a sharp look, merely brushes past him to the doors and slides one open as he calls for his secretary. Taking a deep breath, Zitao turns and heads for the door, which Mr. Wu is at least kind enough to hold open for him.

He thanks the man, but receives nothing in response, and sighs in disappointment as the door shudders shut behind him. 

The secretary only spares him a minimally piteous glance, and Zitao watches as Luhan practically launches himself from one of the chairs all the way at the end of the hall and begins to jog toward him. He should have known this would happen, should have known he would fuck up the only good thing that he’s been able to get his hands on in a very long time. Which makes it all the more ironic when his best friend comes to stand in front of him with an expectant grin on his face, and Zitao has to watch it literally melt off of his lips as he says, “What’s wrong?”

It’s unexpectedly hard to find the words to explain, but he must be more transparent than glass by the way Luhan immediately knows to move forward and wrap his arms around him as Zitao begins to cry. 

“What happened, Tao?”

Melancholy, he shakes his head and buries his feelings deeper into his best friend’s shoulder, not wanting even the daytime sunlight to see his sorrow and his foolishness. “I fucked it up,” he admits through the tears. “They - they told me I might not get a callback.”

“What did you to do fuck up?”

A sniff. “They had me walk, and I - I stumbled, and then my boss said I walk like a baby deer.”

“What the fuck?” Luhan rears back, eyebrows furrowed as anger begins to seep into every pore on his face. “I’ll kick their ass, who is it?”

“Han, don’t, please,” Zitao begs weakly. “Please. I just… can we just go home?”

His best friend sighs and runs his hand carefully down the boy’s back, before coming back up to rub at his upper arms. “Of course, kid. Hey, how about I treat you to some ice cream on the way, yeah? You always like ice cream. Will that make it better?”

Zitao pouts and sniffles, and reaches up to wipe his eyes once more, “Only if I can get gummy bears on my ice cream.”

“Of course you can, dollface, come on.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I got an extra serving of gummy bears in case you want more.”

Zitao watches blankly as his best friend places a styrofoam cup of cookie dough ice cream in front of him sprinkled in miniature gummy bears, and a smaller styrofoam cup filled to the brim with additional gummy bears is placed beside it. He sighs as the man also hands him a stack of napkins and a plastic spoon, and sits back down in his own chair to begin eating his own. 

Having stuck a spoonful in his mouth, Luhan reaches out and lays his hand gently on top of the boy’s which seems to have minutely shaken him out of whatever daze he was in enough to make eye contact with him, and he says, “You okay?”

Zitao’s whole body rolls through a sigh, shoulders slumping and composure weakening, as he sits in a dandy brightly-lit ice cream parlor with fully professional attire and a face full of smudged makeup including patchy lipstick and under-eye mascara residue, and Zitao seems so worn-out and empty that Luhan wonders if perhaps he couldn’t possibly care about his appearance any less than he does right now. 

So when Zitao sticks his spoon into his mountain of ice cream and gummy bears and feels Luhan’s thumb graze the back of his hand, he somberly replies with a disdained, “Not really.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey,” he says as the boy reaches for his doorknob, only to still when his best friend lays a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t sweat it about today, alright? We’ll wait a week for that callback, and then if we don’t hear anything, I’ll help you find a different job. Okay?”

Zitao sighs once more, eyes drooping in exhaustion from crying. “I just want to go to sleep.”

“I know you do, kid. Hey, it’s still only seven o’clock. Try to get a shower in there and maybe read a book, alright? Get your mind off of it.”

He nods, “Thank you, Han. For everything.”

“No problem,” his best friend says with a smile. “And hey, I’ll come see you again at the hospital so you won’t have to be all sad around your mom, alright? Let me know when you’re there next and I’ll come swing by.”

“Han, you have a job. Don’t skip your job just for me.”

“It’s not just for you, kid. God, _anyway_! It’s getting late, and you need rest. Text me whenever okay? Goodnight.”

He enters his home with a broken heart and broken hopes, as he kicks off his shoes and winces at the sting of the blisters against his hardwood floor. He just wants to forget all about this girl thing and would prefer if he never heard the word Yingtao again in his life. In a sudden cloud of self-deprecation, he debates going so far as to even go to his blog accounts and delete his sister account, but he decides he’ll just let it fall inactive instead. Besides, it might help his photography business.

He drops his keys and his portfolio on his dining table and flops down onto the couch, and the second he sits down, tears drip down the sides of his face and he sobs pitifully. Why does he have to be such a fuck-up? What will happen if his mother’s condition takes a turn for the worse all because of him? He will never forgive himself for this. 

He just wishes someone understood exactly how hard it is to know your every single move is vital and you could be responsible for murdering your own parent. He should have been smarter and should have practiced walking ahead of time. Now that he thinks about it, he shouldn’t have been so open at the interview, either. What company - especially one as high-end as that - would actually keep a new employee once they find out they’ve been diagnosed with panic disorder? Zitao should have just kept his big mouth shut. 

Sullen, he decides he doesn’t even have the energy to stay up and rifle through his bills or take a peek at his landscape earnings. He makes his way to his hallway bathroom to rip the extensions out of his hair, wash off his makeup, and decides a full-bodied shower isn’t even worth it at this point.

With a weakened heart, Zitao goes to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Can you help me for a second, miss?”

He points to the very top of the wall, just out of his reach and - cross his heart, he could swear it was against retail policy rules to use company-employed tools without an employee’s help. “Can you get me that one at the top, please?”

“Sure,” she says as she reaches for the garment hook. “Which size would you like?”

“Do you have it in medium?”

“I do,” she jerks the stick upward to hook underneath one of the hangers and procures him one of the garments from the middle. “This one should be medium, sir.”

“Ah, thank you, miss,” he smiles as he takes the garment into his own hands. “How much?”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“A cup of tea, Zitao?”

He sits up to accept the cup given to him, followed by an individual creamer and some sugar packets. “Thank you, Miss Lily.”

The nurse sticks her hands in her uniform pockets as she takes a little visual soak-up of the room before saying, “What’s on television today, Ms. Huang?”

“Reruns,” his mother says in her typical worn-out voice, raspy and low. “Oh, look Zitao, your favorite - _Monkeys Aboard_.”

“Mother,” he whines, taking a sip of his milky tea. “I haven’t seen that movie since I was seven years old, please don’t.”

“Lily, would you beg to be pardoned with the story of how Zitao came to love this movie?”

“ _Mother_!”

The nurse, however, stifles an airy laugh behind her hand as she spectates, a neutral force stood between mother and son. “I’m going to guess it’s not one of much joy considering he seems afraid to talk about it.”

“He’s just being bashful,” his mother says with a smile on her face, and Zitao can’t find it within himself to tell her to shut up. “Zitao was just turned seven, little and peculiar he was. He didn’t like toy cars or action figures or video games like most boys his age, but he liked animals - specifically monkeys.”

“Mother, can we not, please?”

“Shush, you,” his mother scolds, and Zitao pouts and returns to his tea. “Anywho, Zitao had seen a commercial on the television for this movie, and it was all about these monkey friends who were both orphans and they get on a plane to travel across the world to find their parents, only to come to find out they’re actually siblings. Oh, Zitao _loved_ it! He loved it so much I had to purchase it so he could watch it every day when he came home from school.”

“Okay, mother, I think that’s enough. I think Lily understands.”

“Oh, but that wasn’t it,” his mother says with a grin, and Lily’s eyebrows raise. “That Christmas, Zitao had asked for a stuffed animal of the monkey in the movie. The only problem was that they didn’t make them, so I had to go out and buy the stuffing and buttons and make it myself. What did you name it, Zitao?”

“I didn’t name it.”

“Oh yes, you did, what did you name it?”

Zitao broods away over his mug of tea as Lily’s eyes hone in on him, and the tension between the three of them begins to thicken. Sighing, he mumbles under his breath, “I named him Archie.”

“Archie the Monkey,” his mother repeats with that same snide grin across her wrinkled lips. “Isn’t that adorable?”

“Is Archie still with us?” Lily asks him, and Zitao’s lips curl in a gesture that represents no, and the nurse shakes her head humorously as she reaches for his mother’s lunch tray. “I guess he doesn’t like talking about it after all, huh?”

“Make no mistake, Lily, that monkey was his best friend.”

“Mother,” he says again. “Luhan is my best friend.”

“Okay, but Luhan wasn’t your best friend when you were seven.”

Nurse Lily sets the tray off onto the side table near the entrance of the room, and Zitao watches as she tucks a lock of her hair that’s fallen into he face behind her ear, and Zitao wonders distantly why someone as young and pretty became a nurse rather than taking his job at a modeling firm. “Is Luhan that young man that visits every now and then?” Lily asks. “The one with the blonde hair.”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Zitao tells her with another sip. “I’ve been friends with him for a long time, mother.”

“He seems like a nice fellow,” Lily comments sweetly. “Ah, anywho, I’ll take your dishes out to the commissary and I shall return soon, Ms. Huang.”

The nurse leaves and the room falls into silence, somewhat broken by the low-volume murmuring of the television and his mother’s occasional raspy breathing. He thinks about telling her all about his job and how it requires him to dress as the opposite gender, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to get her hopes up when he’s the one that completely messed up his chances of getting accepted. 

Then there’s the possibility that she won’t get her hopes up, but she’ll instead make fun of his choice of career and scold him for not getting a better degree, and with his mother in this state and his anxiety in this state, that’s not exactly a conversation he would prefer to have.

“You’re quiet today,” she notes softly beside him, and Zitao’s heart thunks against his ribs as he hadn’t been expecting her to talk him out of his thoughts so abruptly.

“Sorry, mother,” he responds, and scoots his chair closer to her cot and faces it toward the television so they can both watch. “I’m just watching the movie.”

She smiles slowly and glances over at him with a lopsided look, “Are you, now? Are you over your little fit, now?”

He licks over his bottom lip and glances down at his hands in his lap, meticulously picking the skin off of his cuticles of each finger in the midst of his nervousness, and looks back up at her. “Mother, can I tell you something?”

“Of course you can, my flower. What is it?”

This is it, here goes nothing, he supposes. “I, um… I had a job interview today.”

“Oh?” His mother comments softly, and Zitao doesn’t have to look at her to know that she’s surprised. “Did you really? For what company?”

Shit. “I applied as a… a photographer, for _KW_ down on Main Street.” He lies, and he genuinely can’t believe it when his mother seems to actually buy it.

“Oh, that sounds nice. Did it go well?”

“Well…” he starts, “I kind of - messed up, and… my boss kind of made fun of me.”

“To hell with them,” his mother cusses, and Zitao’s eyes widen. His mother _never_ swears. “My Zitao doesn’t need anybody who makes fun of him, and you will always deserve better. You don’t need to take any job if your employers put you down like that, Zitao.”

“Alright, mother, I think I get it,” he laughs dryly and looks back at his hands in his lap. “I just… I feel like a failure, you know? I feel like I had one chance and I just messed it up.”

“How did you mess it up, my flower, if I may ask?”

He sighs. “I think I was too open. I told them all about needing a job for you and for your bills and I told them about having anxiety and then… then my boss made fun of my body, and I started crying.”

“They sound like a swine,” she tells him. “Look, Tao-ah, I know you’re worried about me, but I want you to be happy. Don’t be somewhere that makes you miserable just because it pays well.”

“Mother, I need the money, and I’ll do anything to get it at this point.”

“Tao,” she says, and Zitao meets her eyes with his own dewy ones, “which is more important to you - money, or my happiness?”

“Your happiness, of course.”

“So why would you think I want money over my own son? I told you, silly boy, if God decides it is my time to go, then it will be my time to go, and you cannot change that. We can’t stop fate, unfortunately, so all we can do is ride on it like the wind. And professionalism is a two-way street, my flower. If you want something badly enough, you have to do everything in your power to chase after it and take it. And sometimes that means taking risks and doing things we don’t want to do, like feigning confidence and showing we deserve it. Do you understand?”

“I understand, mother.”

“I want what’s best for you, Zitao, job or not. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be happy that I’m happy. Alright?”

“Okay, he admits, and his chest blooms cold when she turns her attention back to the television. Just because her living makes Zitao happy doesn’t mean he will be happy once she’s not, and Zitao wishes he could get her to understand that. In the meantime, however, he’ll stay here and watch his favorite childhood movie with her and cherish every second of it, because one time could unluckily be the last time. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he wakes, he’s in a much better mood.

The fear of failure isn’t crawling up his skin and buzzing along in his blood, the anxiety isn’t wrapping its talons around his throat, his mind isn’t blurred and fogged over with a mist of everything he’s ever done wrong before in his life. Maybe it’s because of the therapeutic sleep he had last night, which - with a glance over at his nightstand alarm clock - had lasted a whopping thirteen hours, but he no longer feels at the brink of being ready to give up. 

Luhan calls just before noon to check on him, and Zitao can’t resist apologizing for having been so fragile yesterday, yet it comes as no surprise when his best friend just brushes it aside and tells him not to worry. 

And to make up for what he lacked last night, Zitao manages to shower and eat a full breakfast to get his energy back up. Perhaps the only thing he really can do is just wait, as only time will tell when everyone has been right - he hasn’t been officially turned down, yet. While he knows he really doesn’t have a good chance, maybe for once life will bless him with a miracle and give him this opportunity unlike any other. 

Toweling his hair, Zitao decides to go to his blog and count up his earnings from this past week. His traffic on the landscapes he sells hasn’t changed much, maybe fluctuated just a little bit upward of four-hundred dollars when last week he’d made three, but when he glances at the traffic on his side blog, he’s shocked to see the sudden flow of views and comments on the pictures Luhan took of him the other day in the complex garden. Although not anything to call himself famous because of, he’s definitely got tens more comments than last week when he only had enough to count on one hand, and that in itself warms Zitao’s heart. 

Yet, what might be the most shocking part of it all is that none of the comments allude to him not looking feminine enough, and they are all statements of support and amazement and Zitao truly wonders if maybe he were meant for this job and if maybe it was fate who decided Zitao was cut out to be feminine. 

He decides to reply to the post with a short statement of thanks: _I appreciate all of the support! This was a little bit out of my comfort zone as someone more reclusive and self-conscious, so I’m very glad you like the pictures!_ It’s ironic when he reclines back in his desk chair that the only thought he has is _I’d probably be incredible at this job if only I wasn’t dumb enough to fuck it up._

No matter, he tells himself. He can’t just stay here and sulk all day over what slip-ups he’s made. 

It’s warm outside, he realizes when he shoves his curtains open and places a hand on the glass. Maybe today would be nice for a jog and some music. Then later he’ll swing by the hospital for a few hours, and Luhan should be getting off work around dinnertime. Maybe the guy will be in the mood for a drink and some shit talk, and if Zitao knows him at all, Luhan is always in the mood for some shit talk especially right after work. 

Maybe today will be a good day; maybe he’ll forget about everything and just let life flow on. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“The sunlight is so warm.”

Zitao smiles and lays a hand upon his mother’s shoulder as she looks off into the balcony, as Zitao stands protectively over her like a guardian angel, as the sun beats down on them in the bright, golden-shimmered sky. “How often do you come out here, mother?” He asks, resting his eyes for just a moment as he soaks up the warmth of the air. 

“Twice a week, maybe,” she says, and Zitao carefully rubs his thumb on the nape of her hairless neck, just below her knit beanie hat. “Though, I’m never out here for very long. Perhaps an hour each time, at the most.”

“An hour sounds like a long time, though.”

“Not necessarily. I catch up on rest beneath the sunlight out here. It makes me feel alive.”

Behind his lids, tears spring to Zitao’s eyes at the statement and he tilts his face toward the sky to let the sunlight soak them up and take them away. “I heard you sometimes talk to people out here, mother, that you hang out with people sometimes. Do you?”

“Oh, yes, sometimes. It all depends if they come outside for a breath of fresh air, as well. Most often I talk to Lanfen. You remember her, right?”

He frowns, thinking. Lanfen? The name doesn’t ring any bells. “No, I’m sorry. Should I remember her?”

“Ah, perhaps not,” his mother chuckles, and her shoulders bounce when she does. “You were very young, maybe two or three. Lanfen used to go shuffle boarding with me on the weekends, and when your father and I used to go out say to a restaurant or to a bar mitzvah, she used to come over and babysit you. Of course, once you turned four you stopped being so fussy and we could finally take you places.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes with a goofy smile. “I must have been pretty inconsolable.” 

“You were actually pretty well-behaved for her most of the time. Though, you _did_ shit on her lap one time.”

“Mother!”

“What?” She laughs. “She was getting ready to give you a bath and had to put you on her knee for a second while the water warmed up, and you pooped on her leg.”

“Alright, well, even though it’s probably twenty years late, I am sorry Miss Lanfen for pooping on your leg,” he announces to the sky in confidence, and his mother chuckles from her spot. “It must have been all of the peas and broccoli my mother fed me, so please do not hold it against me. Yell at her instead.”

“Watch it, you,” his mother threatens with a raised hand, and Zitao smiles as he bends down to hug her from behind. 

Hugging his mother is always the best stress relief in the world; his mother is warm, soft, and smells like home. Zitao misses her so much, misses helping her bake cranberry bread and misses smashing walnuts for her rhubarb pies, misses laying across her lap as they watch late night television, misses her reading him bedtime stories as he nods off gently in his bed, as she’d tuck him in underneath his Spiderman blanket and kiss him goodnight. “I miss you, mother,” he admits solemnly and could cry when he feels one of her bony, veiny thumbs reach up to caress his forearm with a comfortingly slow swipe.

“I know, my flower. I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

_Rum, check. Lime, check. Sugar, check. Mint leaves - where are the mint leaves? Oh, check. Seltzer… check._

“Here you go,” Zitao hands him the glass and is rewarded with a thankful nod and a tip of the glass in his direction as a toast. “You know, you’re lucky I even own mint leaves. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who just _has_ mint leaves in their kitchen.”

Luhan laughs as he takes another sip of his mojito and says, “Yeah, that seems like something only bartenders and professional chefs with television shows would have regularly. Thanks for having them, though. Were you using them for something?”

He shrugs his shoulders and twirls his straw around in his glass of rum and coke, “I read online somewhere that you can make your own relaxation oil at home to help with headaches and nausea, two of which my mother has constantly, and I wanted to give her something special that would help her as best I can. So I looked it up, saw that you could either use extracts or extracts plus the herbal ingredients for more power, and it required peppermint, lavender, chamomile, and lemongrass. Lavender and chamomile obviously for settling down, and peppermint and lemongrass for nausea and vomiting.”

“Is she supposed to ingest it?”

“Nah, I think because it’s an oil you can kind of use it as a lotion or say a vapor rub where you put it on your pressure points and the aroma works its magic. Though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ingesting it, ‘cause it probably won’t hurt her.”

“Maybe ask the nurse if she can put it in her tea one day,” Luhan offers, and it’s a good idea but Zitao isn’t sure if the hospital has any policies on outside treatments being brought into the building. He’d definitely have to check with Lily first. 

“Anyway,” Zitao sighs as he takes a sip through his straw. “How was your day at work?”

Luhan snorts, “Shitty. We trained this new girl today - I think her name was Youhua or something. You know, walked her around the restaurant, helped her wait tables, helped her with the ordering machines, helped her learn how to stack plates up her arms and stuff. You know what she does?”

“What does she do, oh Great One?” Zitao’s lips crook up into a goofy smirk. 

“She fuckin’ dumps a French onion all over me!” Luhan theatricalizes with his arms high and wide. “Can you believe that? Done tried to pick it up from her arm and me being a nice person, I go to help her stabilize it, and she just lets it fall all over me. Probably gave me second-degree burns, I swear to God.”

“Han, it was an accident, okay? She’s new, it happens.”

“Yeah, but she’s lucky I didn’t have to go to the hospital to get bandaged! She’s lucky Hyun-soo knows first aid.”

He frowns, “So I’m guessing you had to change your clothes somehow?”

His best friend nods as he says, “Yeah, luckily I had a sweatshirt in my car so when I told my boss what happened he actually let me step off the floor to go change and had someone else take my tables. Obviously, we’re not supposed to wear sweatshirts on the job but I had no other choice, so I walked around with my name on it and waited tables for the rest of my shift while my skin was stinging and smelling like melted cheese and beef stock.”

Smiling, mischievous, Zitao says, “Have you ever tried not playing with fire?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Luhan rolls his eyes, and Zitao cackles, loud and obnoxious, as his friend shakes his head in disbelief. “Hey, dickhead. Did you get your phone call yet?”

Oh. Zitao had mostly forgotten all about it. His stomach sinks as he remembers how he’d be figuring out if he’ll get turned away or not when his house phone rings, and Zitao being the quiet leper he is, hasn’t had anybody ring his house in days. “No,” Zitao opts for as he shies his eyes away. “Not yet.”

“You’ll get it,” Luhan tells him without missing a beat. “You will. I know you will.”

“Even if I get it, there’s no guarantee it’ll be good. They said they’ll call me even if I’m being turned down.”

His best friend sighs this time and turns his eyes to his drink. “Well, let’s just keep praying they accept you, yeah?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get accepted,” Zitao admits with a little laugh, but even Luhan can tell there’s not a speck of humor in it. “Lose hope in nearly everything? Probably. Spiral into a helpless depression? More than likely.”

“I’m sorry,” Luhan offers. “Take another drink, here, come on. It’ll help you.”

He pats Zitao on the upper back, and Zitao takes a long, deep sip, and scrunches his nose up at the buzz of the rum when he swallows. “Mom’s a little happier lately, too.”

“Oh? That’s good. Did you go see her today?”

Zitao nods, “I visited her while you were at work. You know, while you were getting burned alive and stuff. We watched some television and I read her a book.”

“Awe,” Luhan coos with a cheesy smile, and the boy rolls his eyes. “You’re so cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Zitao pouts. “I’m tough and you know it, so don’t make me - ”

Zitao’s heart jumps into his throat when the telephone beside them on the island rings, and he lays a hand over his heart as he mentally blesses himself and thanks the heavens that he hadn’t jumped right out of his skin and gone into cardiac arrest. He swears beneath his breath and glances over at his best friend, who is staring at the telephone on its stand. What if that’s Zitao’s phone call? What if that’s the office calling him to tell him he’s hired - or calling to tell him they weren’t impressed and he’s being turned away? Stomach sinking, Zitao is extremely tempted to let it go to voicemail so he won’t have to know.

“Don’t,” he says quietly, but Luhan is quicker than him as the man slides off of his stool and steps around the island to pick up the phone. “ _Don’t_!”

Luhan shushes him quickly before pressing the answer button. “Hello?”

Zitao’s pulse begins to race as his hands begin to shake, and he has to force himself not to run up and snatch the phone right out of his best friend’s hand and hang it back up on the dock. He doesn’t want to know, and he’d really rather not know. 

And unfortunately, Luhan has placified his expression as he listens to whoever is speaking to him, and Zitao can’t tell for the life of him what he’s thinking or what is happening, so when Luhan says, “She’s in the shower right now, can I take a message?” Zitao’s heart plummets as he realizes just what is happening. This is it, this is the phone call he’s been waiting for. This is the moment that will dictate the outcome of the remainder of his lifetime, and Zitao isn’t ready for it.

His best friend is silent for a long while before glancing over at the phone dock as if preparing to hang up. Zitao’s anxiety bubbles up inside of him so thick he feels as if he’s being choked from the inside. Then, his best friend monotonously says, “Alright, I’ll make sure to tell her. Thank you,” and Zitao’s pulse screeches to a halting stop. 

The look of disappointment written on his best friend’s face speaks volumes, and Zitao’s throat tries to close. “So what’s up?” He manages to ask, and Luhan leans down to rest his elbows on the island as he holds his head in his hands, and sighs as he massages his forehead. It’s a bad sign, and Zitao’s lips tremble as the realization begins to sink in. He’s been turned down. 

Sighing, Luhan looks up at him with a hand on his chin and sadness in his eyes, “I’m sorry, kid.”

A shuddering breath oscillates through Zitao’s chest as everything hits him all at once. “Oh,” he says, shaken and suddenly unmotivated. He should have known this would happen - it’s all because he fucked up and tripped and told them too much information and started crying and Zitao feels as though he’s never been so broken down before. That’s it, he’ll have to start planning how he’s going to say goodbye to his mother and how he’s going to break the news to her that it will be all his fault. He’s not ready to see the look of shame and penultimate loss on his mother’s face knowing there’s no hope for her. “What did they say?” He asks quietly, shoulders slumped and head hung. 

The blonde shrugs for a second before looking away, hopelessness painted across his features, before he says, “You know. That Mr. Wu wants to see you in his office first thing Friday morning for a second interview.”

Blurry-eyed and confused, Zitao looks up at him. No fucking way. 

The words begin to sink in, and when they do, Zitao reaches out with tightly-pressed lips and slaps his best friend across the shoulder, “You fucking jerk!” and wipes his eyes as Luhan begins to laugh with a comically large smile. 

“All in a day’s work,” Luhan comments, and steps around the island to open his arms as an invitation. Zitao, soft and emotional, slides off his stool in haste and hugs him deeply as he begins to cry with pure joy. “See? What’d I tell you? I knew you’d get hired.”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Zitao sobs out around laughter, and his best friend’s hand pats his upper back in a comforting manner. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

Luhan shrugs then, and says, “Never underestimate the power of someone who worked in theater, because chances are, we have our own theater experience and learned how to act. And by the way, you’re welcome.”

What? “For what?”

His best friend smiles, “For helping you fool an entire team of experienced professionals.” 

 


	4. Chapter 4

“First thing’s first - you need some makeup.”

Zitao blinks, timid as his best friend lures him to the section of the store that has been illuminated in bluish-white light and duo-chromatic shelving, white that shifts to purple and back, and Zitao finds himself grimacing at how delicate and powdery the air smells. “Do I have to?” He asks. “Won’t I, like, have a personal makeup artist at work, or some shit?”

Being the effervescent fellow he always is, Luhan deadpans wordlessly with the basket in hand, handle dangled around his wrist, “Well, of course, but you need _something_ going into work. That’s the whole key to the illusion in the first place. After a while, once you have them fooled, then you can start going into work with a bare face because believe me, I’d bet a _thousand dollars_ that half of those models in that firm don’t look the same bare-faced, either.”

He frowns, “Am I ugly bare-faced?”

“What?” His best friend’s eyebrows raise. “Of course not. You’re just not pretty and girly when bare-faced. Alright, so, what colors would you like to wear on your face? I’ll let you pick. What colors do you like?”

Now that he thinks about it, Zitao isn’t sure he’s ever put _Zitao_ and _colors_ in the same sentence, his wardrobe and hair and aura having been achromatic as long as he can remember. “Black, I guess,” he answers in a muted tone, his masculine reflection timid in the pillar mirror, wary of feminine eyes shifting. “And grey, maybe? I don’t know.”

“Jesus Christ,” his best friend sighs, head tilting back as his eyes flutter closed in a small roll. “Right, you’re the broody melancholy type. Alright, well, I guess I’ll have to pick them myself and see what looks good on you.”

Zitao knows for a fact he’s probably never set a single foot in the makeup department of any store, let alone even a mere drugstore, but if there’s one thing he’s certain he’s never become even if he had been unaware, it was human makeup swatch-art, as Luhan dips his fingers into products and grabs Zitao by the wrist and swipes his fingertips along the guy’s skin, powders and creams of shades Zitao isn’t sure he’s ever known to actually exist, some shiny and some flat and some dusted with glitter, and as his best friend counts off to himself, “Green? Okay, definitely not green, it makes you look very golden and in a bad way. Um… white, check, pink, check, orange, check, cran - _ooh_ , cranberry is pretty! Navy looks alright too… and this light blue here…” Zitao becomes very aware of wandering gazes as middle-aged ladies browse around the stores and glance over to him, being held tenderly at the wrist by his best friend, looking very much like a couple. 

“Han, can we, like - hurry this up?” He asks through tight lips. “People are staring.”

“Oh, shut it, you,” Luhan tisks and sets down a big flat thing back onto a shelf, which if Zitao remembers correctly from his makeover the other day, is an - _eyeshadow palette_? Right? “Nobody is staring, sheesh. Well, except for me, but I can look at you all I want.”

“But there are women looking at me.”

Calmly, his best friend meets his eye with a flat gaze. “So? Maybe we’re buying makeup for whatever girlfriends we maybe have. Or, maybe we’re buying makeup for each other. Let them think things, Zitao, it’s alright. Believe me, nobody here is thinking that you’re a boy full-time with a helping of girl on the side.”

He sighs and allows his best friend to continue marking his skin with different colors, this time going into what looks like liquid pen-things, and when Luhan mumbles out a muffled, “ _Eyeliner_ ,” Zitao understands.

When the blonde is done dipping his fingers into pans and shades of every array under the sun, Zitao’s entire left arm is striped up to his elbow like a tiger’s coat, and Luhan has to reach into the bag over his shoulder for a wet wipe to clean him up, “Sorry about this,” he says with a crooked chuckle. “I had to swatch everything to see how they worked with your skin tone, but it’s kind of a dirty process. Don’t worry, though, I have plenty of wipes.”

“So these are eyeshadow thingies?” He asks in a tiny voice, glancing down at the colorful book-like palettes in the basket, his eyes counting _one, two, three, four, five, six, seven - why seven?_ and his friend laughs.

“Yes, Tao, they are eyeshadows. You put them on your eyes, usually with a _brush_ ,” he drawls dramatically with a brilliant grin. “They’re like colored charcoals, but for your eyelids. And I personally like palettes over individual shadows because they’re more compact and you don’t have to bust out tons of colors for one work.”

“Oh,” he says, understanding the analogy. “So, do you have to make like a canvas for it like charcoal, too, or?”

“Yep,” Luhan smiles. “We get you an eyeshadow primer for that. Exactly what it sounds like.” Reaching over, the blonde snatches a small packaged tube off of a wall rack, then grabs a second for good measure, and tosses them both into the basket. “You apply them before any shadow, that way they stick better and it’s like you’re shading - as you said, a canvas.”

He nods. “Makes sense.”

Letting go of his wrist, Luhan leads him over to another section with differently-colored shelving, hot-pink and black from ceiling to floor. “Alright, now I’m gonna need your neck and your chin to swatch you for foundation and concealer. Don’t worry, I’m getting you good makeup only.”

“You can get shitty makeup?”

A snort. “Oh, you have no fuckin’ idea, Tao. I’ve been down this road enough times to know which makeup sucks and which makeup is good, so I know what to get for you. Bad makeup just doesn’t work out, so, for example, bad foundation cracks and breaks apart, bad eyeliner bleeds and runs and smudges, et cetera. You catch my drift?”

_Mhm_. He hums as his friend gently grasps his chin in careful fingers, wary not to move too much. “Alright,” Luhan continues. “So this is shade _102 Warm Beige_ ,” he says softly before a wet fingertip presses to the line of Zitao’s jaw, and his face contorts for just a second in brief confusion. “Too light. One down is _105 Warm Nude_ … eh, still too light. _110 Warm Honey_ …” 

Zitao zones out as the wipe swipes along his jaw to clean up the makeup mess, and by the time he averts his eyes from a middle-aged passerby giving him slightly judgmental looks, as if she’s got an old-fashioned mindset and views Zitao and Luhan as a gay couple about to engage in a loving kiss, judging by the hand on his chin, he realizes the guy has set two bottles of foundation and a tube of concealer into the basket. “What are,” he starts, slightly out of it, before he remembers what they had been doing.

“Your foundation color is _110 Warm Honey_ and your concealer color is _Sand_ ,” he says with a smile and gently pats Zitao’s cheek with the hand that had held him in place. “You know, just in case you need to come restock on anything.”

He blinks. He doesn’t think he’d ever get the guts to come in here in-disguise, let alone even just in his regular everyday form. 

Next comes _blushes_ , and Zitao doesn’t get any swatching or any time for questions as Luhan blindly - _hastily_ , really - reaches out and grabs, tucking product after product into the basket. “I don’t really need to test these on you,” he says offhandedly. “Most blush colors can look nice on most skin tones. Besides, I already know you look nice in pink and orange tones.”

Much akin to a ragdoll, Zitao allows him to tug him further into the store and press colors into his skin and mark him like a sketchbook, beginning to accept that this is now his life and this is what he is going to have to grow accustomed to. He accepts that girls have to go through this on a probable routine basis and that if he is going to have to assimilate himself into this kind of lifestyle, he is going to have to get used to the way girls live. 

Afterward comes _lipstick_ , and Zitao discovers that picking out lipstick colors is a lot like picking out eyeshadow colors - now that Luhan already has an ideas of what colors apparently look bad on Zitao’s skin, he picks out similarly flattering lipstick shades, as well, practically piling tubes of pinks and berries and corals into the basket., and Zitao’s wrist begins to ache above beneath the weighted pull of the handle. “For fuck’s sake, how much else is there?” He asks with a sigh, and his best friend taps on his chin before grabbing more things from the shelves. “I feel like my arm is going to fall off.”

“Nothing is going to fall off,” Luhan laughs as he places more tubes into the basket. “Jeez, you need to lift weights.”

“Well excuse me for not being a fan of having huge, bulging arms,” he jokes. “Seriously, what else is there to buy? I’m getting tired.”

The blonde sighs and gives him a sharp look, “We’re almost done with makeup, okay? Then we can check out, empty the cart, and we have more things to buy.”

A groan. “ _More things_?”

“Yes, Tao, more things. Girls don’t just own makeup only. They also own hair brushes, and soaps, and perfumes, and facial cleansers, and accessories. I’m also going to get you some hair removal cream for those parts you didn’t let me wax, like your brows and your balls.”

He sighs aloud as his best friend places more packages into the basket, and when he looks down at how it borders on overflowing, he notices packages of eyelashes resting on top of the pile. “This is so embarrassing.”

“ _You’re_ embarrassing,” Luhan joshes back at him. “Look, we’re almost done, alright? Let me just grab some brushes and a sponge for you. Oh, and some cleansers.”

By the time they finish their first round of browsing and unpack the mountainous basket onto the counter before the cashier, her eyes go slightly wide at the sheer amount of products they are purchasing, and although Zitao has never stepped foot in this place, in particular, he gets the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that the makeup here must be quite expensive. 

The cashier, however, is every bit as expectantly chipper and kind as Zitao would expect from a retail worker on a good day, a smile on her face and coral blush on her perky cheeks, and in a sweet singsong, she asks, “You bought a lot of makeup, didn’t you? Is this for any certain occasion, or just buying for the first time?”

Zitao finds himself tongue-tied, unsure of how to answer such a question. Quickly, Luhan fills in the space, “He does drag,” the blonde says, and the girl smiles and coos at the answer. “He’s running low on some stuff and was looking to expand his collection, so I came with him to help pick stuff out.”

“Do you do drag also?” She asks, voice and gaze directed to the blonde as she scans each item with a mechanical _beep_ and places them into a plastic bag. Luhan gives a half-confirmative shrug and a whittled _sometimes_ , and Zitao can’t help but be impressed with his finely-tuned people skills. Zitao envies him for being able to talk to just about anyone and everyone, yet Zitao can’t seem to articulate whole sentences without panicking. “Wow, that’s so cool,” she continues with a pretty grin on her small lips. “I think drag makeup is so breathtaking. Oh! Did you need any recommendations for anything? Like brands, formulas, products?”

“I think we got everything, but thank you,” Luhan smiles at the cashier, and Zitao looks away shyly. 

“No problem,” the girl tells them as she begins to tissue-wrap and bag the palettes. “Just so you know in case you come back in the near future, we do offer a rewards program where if you make an account with us and link your email, you will receive newsletters and notifications of brand sales, as well as coupon codes that coincide with such sales. Would you be interested in signing up?”

This time, the question is directed at Zitao, and his heart thumps as he meets her gaze, just as soft and innocent as it had been the whole time, and Zitao should have no reason to feel panicked and afraid. Right? “Oh, um, sure,” he stammers, and the girl smiles and passes him a flyer and a pen. When he looks it over, it’s an application requiring his name and his email, just as she had told him. He takes the pen and begins scribbling down his family name when he stops; if he ever comes back here, he will more than likely come back as _Yingtao_. Exhaling out a stifled breath, he continues to write; _Huang Yingtao_. He’s got to get used to that. 

When he moves down the application, he writes in his email as well as his cell phone number before passing the form back. “Thank you,” the girl sings as she clicks the pen and slides it into her waist apron pocket. “Alright, your total comes to seven-hundred eighty-three and fifty-seven cents.”

Heart dropping into his gut, Zitao’s eyes practically bug right out of his skull. There is no fucking way he can let Luhan spend nearly a thousand fucking dollars just on makeup for him - is he out of his fucking _mind_? “Han, that’s way too much,” he whispers beside his best friend, and he’s not shocked that it seems to catch the cashier’s ears judging by the way she looks up at them as Luhan procures his wallet and following that, his credit card. 

“Shut up, you,” Luhan teases as he slides his card through the scanner. “I don’t spend money on myself, so let me spoil you, alright?”

“Okay, but just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean it won’t eventually run out,” Zitao presses again, and something in him deflates as the cashier instructs Luhan to type in his pin code and write his signature on the electronic pad. “Han, _no_!”

“Tao,” Luhan says with a glance over his shoulder, and Zitao shrinks just a little bit under the edge of that gaze. His friend is speaking sternly, flatly, and although not angry, Zitao can tell that Luhan has no intention of budging from his stance in this conversation. “I said it’s fine, trust me. It would take a lot more than me buying makeup for me to go bankrupt. It would take me buying you a hundred cars for me to go bankrupt, alright? And I mean expensive cars, Tao. Relax.”

He pouts as the transaction passes and his friend slides his card back into its slot in his wallet. “Don’t you have to spend money on you sometimes, though? Like, food and gas and… soap, and things?”

Luhan offers the cashier a kind grin as he takes the bag from her and pulls it over the counter before looking over at his friend. “Well, of course, but that kind of thing is cheap. I don’t splurge on myself just because I have a millionaire’s inheritance. You’d be shocked, Tao, that I’m actually far from spoiled. Why do you think I only make minimum wage waiting tables? It’s because I don’t hold my money above myself. Having money is great, sure, but if I have nothing to make me happy outside of my money, like keeping your mother alive and seeing you happy and prosperous, then what is the point of being filthy rich?”

The question sticks to Zitao’s skin like tacky humidity. He’s never thought of it that way - what would life be like if they lived it solely for money without the pursuit of happiness? Zitao can’t fathom how lonely that must feel, to have your worldview revolve solely around fending for yourself and not enjoying a single thing you do. Come to think of it, isn’t that how Zitao lives now? Of course, his world revolves around money for his happiness, but now that he thinks about it, it explains why Zitao is constantly so lonely and apathetic. 

“Besides,” Luhan starts up again, and when it pulls Zitao out of his reverie, he notices the warmest of smiles on his best friend’s lips, “we have more stuff to buy. Okay?”

Nodding on auto-pilot, Zitao lets the guy drag him to other corners of the store as he thinks about the statement. _If I have nothing to make me happy outside of my money, then what is the point of being filthy rich?_

Zitao hopes that once his first check comes in, he will finally be happy. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

  
_Five-thousand dollars._

It’s _five-thousand dollars_ later when Zitao finally leaves the mall, finally sighs as he plops into the passenger seat, arms and back aching to all hell after piling bags upon bags of makeup, personal hygiene products, shoes, and even clothes into the back of Luhan’s car, and Zitao has half his wits about him to give his best friend a piece of his mind over the ridiculous amount he’s spent. “You’re crazy, you know,” Zitao comments as Luhan tucks himself into the driver’s seat and slides his key into the ignition. 

“I know,” he responds with a grin, “but hey, I gotta do what I gotta do to keep my best friend in a job, right?”

Zitao rolls his eyes. “You’re going to have wasted five-thousand dollars if I get fired.”

Nonchalantly, his best friend shrugs. “Well, then I guess you’ll have to _not_ get fired, now won’t you?” 

“Just wait, there will come a day when some cheeky asshole decides to stick their hand up my ass and discovers _oh, she’s got a backward dick_! That’ll be the day I waste five-thousand dollars.”

His best friend laughs out loud at the comment as he pulls out of the parking lot, and Zitao sighs into the seat at the lull of the moving vehicle. He’s truthfully worn out from his long day of shopping spree after shopping spree, and his arms feel like they’ve been sliced into tenths. After this, he needs a good, long, hot shower and about fifteen hours of sleep, because tomorrow, he’s going to hurt like _hell._

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Luhan pipes up suddenly as they pull out onto the main road. “I have a shift on Friday at eleven, so I’ll have time to bring you to your second interview and all, but you’ll have to go somewhere and stay there after that unless you have bus fare. Would you want me to bring you home or to the hospital?”

He frowns slightly; right, his interview is at eight forty-five in the morning. Assuming his interview doesn’t take over an hour, they should be fine on time, since the restaurant and Luhan’s apartment aren’t very far from each other, but Zitao still hasn’t told his mother the secret about his job. How is he supposed to explain himself if he just shows up one day in full disguise? “Home would be better,” he answers among his thoughts. “My mother still doesn’t know I applied as a female.”

Ah. “Understandable. You’ll probably want to go home and change and then head to the hospital yourself, then. Well, assuming you one day tell her, how are you going to break it to her?”

Zitao snorts, watching hazily as they turn onto the highway and Luhan’s blinker clicks rhythmically. “Well, we already ruled out that I can’t just show up and say _surprise!_ but I actually haven’t thought of how I’m going to say it. I mean, I know she’s not going to necessarily judge me for it, but it makes me uncomfortable to think of telling her. I don’t want to make things weird between us, not right now. She’s too sick for that.”

“That’s okay,” Luhan offers soothingly. “Don’t rush it. If I know your mother, she would never disown you no matter what decisions you chose to make, and definitely wouldn’t look at you strangely for dressing as a female, let alone earning money as a female. Actually, she would be proud of you for being brave enough to do what you did.”

“I know,” he hums as he gazes out the window at the saturated sunset, eyelids growing heavy. He knows it’s not about the judgment he will or will not receive - it’s about admitting it to people. Zitao has a hard enough time admitting it to himself, let alone his own mother. 

His ears catch the sound of the leather on Luhan’s belt grunting as the man shifts slightly, and Zitao exhales and lets his eyes drift closed. “You tire easily, Tao-ah,” Luhan comments gently, and Zitao gives a passive hum before he feels the gentle patting of a loving palm on his shoulder. “It’s alright, we’ll be home in about thirty minutes. Get some shut-eye, I’ll wake you when we get there.”

Zitao sighs and leans his head against the warm kiss of the sun-glazed window, sighing as he finds a comfortable position. No matter what happens, Luhan will always have his back and will always be there to hold his hand when nobody else will. Perhaps when it comes time to break the news to his mother, Luhan would be willing to mediate.

 

 

 

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
He heaves a tired breath as he tosses the last of the shopping bags onto his bed, overthrown with colorful plastic and shoe boxes and spilled fabrics, and Zitao lets out a sigh at the sight. How is he supposed to organize _all_ of this? 

He decides to start easy and light - heading into his closet and grabbing each and every empty hanger and tossing them into a pile in the corner by his dresser, and he realizes in disdain that he only really has _four full outfits_. Now that he’s in possession of so much clothing, he feels like he’s never had anything to wear at all in his entire life. _The Cons of Being Poor, part one, chapter three:_ Zitao has no experience with filling a closet or owning prints, and therefore, has no idea how to pair clothing together in miscellaneous colors. 

Too tired, however, he decides against pairing outfits right now and decides he’ll have to make that a project for each night before his shifts in the morning, assuming his schedule would be something like a routine full-time job, something like eight-to-five on a weekday basis. 

Suddenly shy about his own masculine, darkly-pigmented clothing, he tucks them into the far left side of his closet just in case anyone were to peer curiously into his boudoir, which Zitao isn’t exactly sure why anybody would have permission to be looking at his belongings, in the first place. He decides to put the dresses Luhan purchased for him in the middle of the top bar, all floral prints and some with pleated skirts and laced bodices, and Zitao can’t help but find them strangely beautiful. Next, come the blouses, all crisp and polo-necked of varying pastel colors, some floral as well, and he hands them beside the dresses. Beside the shirts go the skirts, all varying lengths, colors, and patterns, some plaid and latticed while others thick and woolen, some pleated and monotoned and others long and billowy with laced hemming. 

Where Zitao grows confused is the shoeboxes - his closet is only so wide and only so deep, and Zitao is not one to own more than two pairs of shoes in this economy, so where is he supposed to put the _dozens_ of boxes piled high next to his bed? 

He decides after a brief spell of exhaling pitifully, hands on his hips, that he’s going to have to line them up against his wall to the right of his door, adjacent to his closet. He leaves his sneakers and his dress shoes at the bottom of his closet for his own personal keepsake, that way they aren’t in full view should anyone sneak a look into his bedroom. 

Not being a glutton, Zitao genuinely doesn’t see the necessity in owning _fifteen_ pairs of high-heels and five pairs of sneakers; he feels like he could accomplish everything with a pair of white and black in both styles, making it four rather than twenty, but he knows he isn’t qualified with the knowledge to speak about feminine fashion styles. 

After this comes the makeup - and Zitao breathes a sigh at the simplicity of organizing it. Not owning a vanity, Zitao uses the bare top of his low dresser, only hip-high and glossed at the top. He stacks the palettes in the back and lines the brushes up in the very front for easy access, but once he gets to the lipsticks, he starts to grow confused. Are they all lipsticks, or are some glosses? Are they all for _lips_ and not _eyes_? Zitao doesn’t remember even half of the makeup mumbo-jumbo that Luhan had been mumbling to him in the store earlier. 

Sighing, he lines the tubes up by color: pale pinks with the vivid pinks, corals with the oranges, berries next to the reds, creating a warm rainbow across the top of his dresser shifting from orange to cranberry. Behind the row of lip colors, he places the foundation bottles and the concealer tube as well as the rest of the small products, including the liners and pencils. Does Luhan really expect him to have to do his own makeup every single morning? Zitao isn’t sure he even knows how to _apply_ makeup.

Tired, Zitao exhales loudly and lets the store-branded plastic bag fall from his fingers and drift to his feet. Is this truly worth it? 

Sure, he’s aware that the money is an absolute necessity, but sex work is still always in the question. Zitao could pack all this up and hand the receipts right back to each individual store and get Luhan his five-thousand dollars back and could sign up as a sex escort, or something, and cater to men and women frustrated with their marriages. He sighs, for he doesn’t know what to do. 

Maybe a shower is in order to help clear his mind. Then, maybe after his shower, Zitao will look over his pictures from the amusement park. Yeah, that couldn’t hurt too much.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

  
Tomorrow. His private interview is _tomorrow._

Now past the infamous debilitating worry that Zitao is used to, he finds himself shaking hands with something more unfamiliar in the way that his hands tremble, in the way his drinking glass shatters when he falters and his grip spasms, in the way that he blanks out mid-shoelace tying and in the way he finds his breath ripped from him the second he opens his eyes in the morning. 

This isn’t his average, everyday anxiety. This is terror, and Zitao doesn’t much prefer its first impression.

From here on out, his entire outlook on life is going to change and he’s not entirely sure he’s ready - as someone who has always stuck to walls and kept quiet in the midst of group discussions, had always been the designated artist for projects and never the speaker, he’s got to now think up a new persona for himself, one completely backwards and everything he’s not. If there were somehow a quick, perhaps ingestible cure for anxiety, Zitao would invest in it before he could even think twice. 

He finds himself that evening curled in his bed sitting-up, not even a wink of sleep anywhere in sight, his heart hammering away in his throat and his reflux bubbling. It takes every cell in his body to not reach over to the nightstand beside him, snatch the phone from its charging dock and call the office with an _I’m sorry, but I’m no longer interested._ He reminds himself that this isn’t for him, that this is for his mother and this is for Luhan, that this is for everybody except himself and to back out of plans last minute would be cowardly, yet he sheds tears for choices he is incapable of making. 

_It’s tomorrow, it’s in literally eleven hours, you can make it, Zitao. You can do it._

What if he _can’t_ make it? What if he lets everyone down - including himself? Whether proud of it or not, this had been the only opportunity in a very long time that gave Zitao the comforting touch of a blanket of safety, the only thing in many years that’s made him feel hopeful for his mother’s future. He knows himself, knows his impulsive, indecisive ways and knows if he were to misstep, he would never be able to forgive himself because it could have been prevented. He doesn’t think before he acts, he knows this; it’s a trait he’s long since been trying to improve, but with mental restrictions, he’s done less than improve and the thought ashames him.

Trembling and unable to think, he blindly reaches for the phone and with a calming breath of reassurance, he dials his best friend’s phone number instead.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you need help standing?” Luhan asks as he swings back the passenger door and extends a hand, giving Zitao room to breathe and stretch his glossed legs freely. “Take your time, by the way. You’ve got a couple minutes.”

Having nearly fallen while dressing himself that morning, knees proving too soft to be trustworthy, Zitao had requested for his best friend to drive him to his interview yet again. Guilty and burdensome, Zitao had refused to stop apologizing throughout the span of the drive from his apartment to the company building. 

Now that he’s gotten some fresh air and let it sink in that he’s already come far enough as to set both feet on company grounds, Zitao can comfortably say that the fear that had wrapped its talons around his throat all night and tortured the length of his sleep has now melted down into anxiety, and awkwardness and unsureness of what to say or how to present himself. “Sorry,” he apologizes somberly, fingertips trailing along Luhan’s palm. “I feel better now, thank you.”

“No problem,” the blonde smiles, every bit as visually lethargic as Zitao is used to in his rugged burgundy sweatshirt, hair tied back and glasses atop his nose as if just having woke up. Zitao feels guilty thinking that he could have been the one to wake him. “Honestly, you’re glad my shift isn’t until eleven or I wouldn’t have been able to take you. My manager won’t let me call out sick anymore until the summer.”

He exhales as he takes in a deep sigh of the crisp air, not too warm but not chilly, either - Zitao’s favorite weather. Not needing to take much heed to any harsh climate extremes, Zitao had dressed in a muted periwinkle blouse with floral embroidery on the upper left breast and a denim skirt that extends to his mid-thigh, and just like the other day, Zitao is once again taller than his best friend in heeled shoes - uncomfortable as they may be, dark navy with pointed toes, he cannot help but feel a sense of self-pride as though he made a smart choice. Out of sheer insecurity, he finds himself stuttering as he asks, “Do I look okay?”

Eyebrows lifted, Luhan gives him a look-over. “Yeah, actually. I’m kind of surprised you managed to gussy up all prettily without any help. And you even have the extensions in and didn’t have to ask me to install them for you - color me impressed, Tao-ah. See? You’re already a natural.”

Zitao scoffs and rolls his eyes, having spent an entire three hours both hyperventilating and trying to learn how to apply eyeshadow. “Fuck you, okay? This shit is a lot harder than it looks.”

His friend hums, “Yeah, I can tell. Your foundation’s a little unblended.”

“What?” His eyes widen, panicked and suddenly insecure. “Oh God, _where_? Is it too noticeable?”

“Tao,” Luhan laughs. “I’m kidding. You look fine, okay? You look really pretty like you always do. Now, we should probably get going, yeah? It’s eight forty-one. Do you know where your interview will be?”

He blinks as his friend’s fingers find his palm once more, and he tries to think back to the email he had received the same night as his confirmative phone call. _Hello Yingtao_ , it had read; _this is Zhang Yixing, President Wu’s secretary. I am contacting you on behalf of your performance last week; as you may know by now, President Wu has requested that you meet with him privately to discuss further matters regarding your position at KW Industries. Your second interview is scheduled for 8:45 AM on Friday the tenth. President Wu is obliged to inform you that you are to report to your interview neither a minute early nor a minute late, and you are to wear shoes no taller than four inches in lift. We look forward to working with you, Yingtao. Have a good day._

Zitao had read over the email four times to be exact, and Secretary Zhang had never mentioned where his interview was to be held - whether it would be in the presentation room as the last, or if it would be in a new, much different room - perhaps the President’s office? Whatever room Zitao had walked in last week hadn’t looked much like a professional office to him, especially not one inside what is probably a billion-dollar company. “Fuck,” he swears as his pulse jitters just a little. “They didn’t tell me where this one will be. _Shit_ , and it said I can’t be late! Fuck, fuck.”

“Shh, it’s okay,” the blonde rushes to say as the boy’s hands delve into his long hair in stress, and Luhan has to work to pry them free before they mess up the tracks. “Tao, it’s okay, look - we can probably go ask someone in the lobby, yeah? Last time there was a front desk, they helped us find the presentation room. We’ll just go ask them if they know where your interview will be, and the worst they’ll tell us is no. Alright? Here, come on.”

Luhan interlocks their fingers, something so intimate that it makes Zitao’s nose scrunch at the cheesiness, and not a second is wasted pulling Zitao’s unwilling self past the glass double-doors of the entryway. Inside, the lobby is just as expansive as he recalls from last week, lavish marble flooring polished and gleaming yet not slick, comfortably chilled and refreshing. At the sides of the room are large, electronic boards graphed as though lists, and if Zitao stares for long enough, he can see the display twitch and flicker as it refreshes, and some items on the list shift spots. What is the list for, he wonders; is it a schedule, perhaps?

He’s brought back to earth and back to remembering that he doesn’t have time to waste when the hold on his wrist pulls and he nearly trips over his own feet and lets the guy drag him to the front desk as planned.

When they approach the desk, the girl behind the counter looks up over the rim of her glasses, the reflection of her desktop computer illuminated across the glass, and Luhan is the one to speak as he says, “Excuse me, my friend has a private interview with the company president in a few minutes - would you happen to know where she would go for that?”

The secretary is perky in her mannerisms, the shadow of a smile glimmering across her frosted lips as she says, “Oh, of course. You’re looking for the President’s quarters, then. Top floor, down the hall and it’s the room straight ahead. Big glass doors, you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you so much, miss,” Luhan smiles and with another tug, he pulls them off to the left to the hallway where the elevators are.

“I still can’t believe this place has elevators,” Zitao comments in awe, eyes wide and beady as he soaks up just how much money he’s dancing around right now. Having never stepped foot in a building even remotely close to this wealthy, Zitao had no prior idea that lobbies could be so large, or that wealth had a scent.

“Well, now you know. Expensive companies have expensive privileges, like elevators.”

When they reach the top floor, Zitao is finally overcome with the familiar apprehension as they’re met with the sight of a long hallway, just as luxuriant in glossy white as the hallway where his first interview had been, yet somehow more baronial and princely, decorated with tall, picturesque windows down the length, all leading to a hallway that splits to the left and the right and in the middle, two posh glass doors with silver handles and what appears to be a decoratively crystalline finish to the glass, frosted and crackled, almost. “What time is it?” He finds himself asking as he stills in the width of the hallway, staring at the blurred silhouettes of furniture past the doors. 

“Eight forty-four,” Luhan tells him. “You don’t have time to back out now. You ready, kid?”

He looks back at his best friend, tears in his eyes and a tremble in his chin, “I’m scared.”

“Tao,” his best friend whispers, voice soft and tender. “Believe me, you’ve already been hired. There’s nothing to be scared of, okay? All he’s probably going to talk about is rules and regulations you have to follow on the job and you’ll probably find out your salary and hours. Okay? You’ll be fine. Here,” he removes Zitao’s familiar portfolio from under his arm and hands it to him, the boy taking it in careful palms. “And remember, _Yingtao_ ,” he emphasizes, and Zitao sniffles as he tries to contain a small laugh, “I’ll be waiting right here for you when you come out. Okay?”

He inhales deeply, smoothly, doing his best to quell the tightness in his throat, “Okay.”

Turning on his heel, Zitao lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, had forgotten all about the fact that he was _not breathing_. It’s okay, he just wants to go over rules and regulations and other stipulations that Zitao will be required to follow - right? It’s just a follow-up of his last interview and not something that could get him fired if he misspeaks… right?

_Come on, Zitao_ , he thinks to himself. _You’ve come this far, and you’ve probably got the biggest balls in the entire female staff because you’re probably the only female that has them._

Bravely, he reaches forward and knocks on the frosted glass.

The office behind it is slightly silent, save for the rhythmic clicking of what he assumes is probably a keyboard, probably someone _typing_ on said keyboard, before his heartbeat stutters when he hears a smooth, deep _come in._

He supposes that would be his cue, so with portfolio in hand, he tugs the handle on the grandiose glass door and pulls it past him and lets himself into the office with a shy peek, visually clarifying that he is indeed in the right place because who knows, maybe the desk secretary gave him incorrect information.

When the door closes behind him with a loud _clack_ , however, two eyes peer up at him from where they’d been scanning paperwork, pen in hand. “Name?” The president asks, similarly coiffed in a navy pinstriped suit and dark hair gelled back, gaze just as sharp and calculative as Zitao remembers, and just as equally intense and captivating as he tries not to remember. 

He swallows, nervous as ever and says, “Y-Yingtao. Huang Yingtao, sir.”

Zitao finds it fascinating how he can pinpoint the exact moment that realization crosses that gaze by the way it shifts minutely from unfamiliarity to something slightly warmer, but Zitao could have easily been mistaken coming to that conclusion. “Huang Yingtao,” the president repeats as though for memorization, as he braces both hands on the desk and stands in one fluid motion, spine straightening and _yes_ , Zitao remembers just how tall and intimidating he had been, as well, shoulders broad and suit corners pointed. 

His gaze rakes along Zitao’s form and the boy has to avert his eyes to avoid direct contact, and his heart jumps into his throat as he registers the soft thudding of dress shoes on waxed flooring. Looking back, he notices the president stepping around his desk and walking right up to him with timely steps, hands at his sides and face stoic. Zitao doesn’t know if his heart will be able to handle working for someone so attractive and so ethereal. 

Seconds turn into what feels like hours that Zitao crumbles beneath those eyes, before the president shows him a glimpse of cordiality by extending his hand with a bleak facade, and when Zitao takes it as he feels obliged to, as though ignoring it would result in some kind of punishment, he says, “Kris Wu. I am under the obvious assumption that you have been contacted by my cabinet regarding your position here, am I correct?”

Zitao has to resist scrunching up his nose; his _cabinet_? Jeez, this guy really takes his _president_ title too literally, doesn’t he? “Yes, sir.”

Their hands part and Zitao feels a sense of longing begin to creep into his chest as he begins to miss that warm touch, the soft cracks of skin lines along the president’s supple palm. “I appreciate your punctuality, Miss Huang,” the man says, and Zitao makes note in the back of his mind how monotonously the president speaks, voice lacking lilt as though rehearsed. After the compliment, the president’s eyes resume scanning his body, as though his _attire_ and Zitao wonders if he looks frumpy since he gussied up all by his inexperienced self. 

Frowning, he asks, “Is - is there something the matter, sir?”

Fortunately, the president’s head shakes indicative of a no, but Zitao could vomit when the man responds with, “I am curious about something, Miss Huang. Is it a routine occurrence for you to smell of men’s shampoo?”

Internally, his pulse completely stops as his stomach plummets, and Zitao wonders if its ghost had left his body for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” he blurts out without thinking, hastily and rushed. “It - it’s my brother’s. He hugged me before I arrived, I - I didn’t know the smell stuck to me.”

He coerces himself into believing that the president buys the excuse by the way he nods his head in makeshift slow motion, before turning on his heel and presenting the boy his back as he returns to his desk. “It is not anything I would void a contract for,” President Wu says with his back turned, “I was merely curious. I was unsure if it were a personal preference to be scented with pine rather than something floral and delicate.” 

“It’s my mistake, sir,” he apologizes with a courteous bow. “I will be more careful.”

“That’s enough, Miss Huang,” the president presses once more when he resumes his spot stood over his desk, and Zitao’s voice dies out in his throat. “I want to see how you walk.”

Oh. “Again?” He asks timidly. “I walked for you last time.”

The president cuts his eye a little bit and gives a chopped sound, almost like a scoff, “Yes, and it was not up to company standards, which means I would hope you would have practiced and improved, Miss Huang. Am I incorrect?”

Zitao had practiced briefly since the initial interview - if you count pacing back in forth down his hallway to practice putting pressure on his toes. It hadn’t, unfortunately, been anything too intense since he hadn’t known he’d be required to walk again. “Should I start at the door again?” He asks as he gestures behind him, but the president merely shakes his head and places his palms on his desk once more.

“Start here,” he instructs flatly, almost disinterestedly. “Walk to the door and return.”

Ah. Okay, Zitao can do that. It’s just walking.

He does as instructed, turning his back and walking towards the familiar frost of the glass doors, toes down and head high, breath held tight in his throat. Zitao has found that the less he breathes when walking, the more he finds himself able to concentrate on his steps.

When he turns back around without falter and returns to his spot before the president’s desk, the man’s face has not budged even a little, and Zitao wonders if his performance had been less than impressive. However, when he stands straight again, he manages to bite his tongue from the impending _did I do well?_ and remembers his mother’s advice that confidence is key, and if Zitao wants to have things go smoothly and be hired, he’s got to be confident even if he’s falling apart inside.

Seemingly not too big a fan of extended silence, the president exhales into the stilled air and twists his lips into a thoughtful pucker. “A bit better,” he admits when he meets Zitao’s eye. “It still needs improvement, but you did not fall over this time.” And his boss, while definitely not a fan of emotional complimenting, also seems to definitely not be a fan of beating around the bush, as he gestures with an open hand to the binder underneath Zitao’s arm. “Your portfolio, Miss Huang.”

“Oh,” he stutters softly, remembering that he’d been holding it this whole while. “Sorry. Here you go.”

“Enough,” the president hisses through tight lips as he takes the book, “apologizing. I thought I made it clear last week for you to stop apologizing for noncommittal doings.”

_Sorry_ lingers on the tip of his tongue once more. “I understand, sir,” he settles for, voice sweet and shy. 

He is not met with a sympathetic response as the president sinks back down into his desk chair and lays Zitao’s portfolio out before him, atop his other paperwork as though unimportant, and begins to sift through the plastic dividing folders and through Zitao’s documents. He tries his best to avert his eyes to keep himself from staring at just how cloyingly attractive the man is, attempting to busy himself with the ticking arm of the wall clock or the dance of the trees outside the windows as they rustle in the wind, yet his eyes continue to betray him as they sneak glances breathing and existing so alluringly just mere feet from his reach.

A man, who, unbeknownst to him, must have a sixth sense, because his gaze sharpens when he looks up and Zitao panics and glances away.

“Who took these pictures, Miss Huang?” The president asks, and when Zitao deems it safe enough to look back, he notices that the man has the book open to the pictures from that day at the amusement park, several of which were the shots of Zitao by the tree and in front of the Ferris wheel, as well as Luhan in front of the brick wall in the red haze of the added filter.

“I did,” he blurts out, and his face falls when the man raises an eyebrow, slightly unimpressed. “Well, I mean - the ones of _me_ weren’t taken by me, but those ones there - that’s my best friend, I took those. The ones of me were taken with my camera but were shot by my best friend. I also took the landscapes when I was out interning and traveling.”

The president sticks his tongue in his cheek for a brief moment before sitting straight in his chair, back uncurved. “Where have you traveled for these, if I may ask?”

Oh. “Well, the beach shots were taken in Beihai - I was scavenging for pearls and really liked the colors of the sunset, and - the, um, the mountains were taken in Xi’an, and then the pictures of the flowers along the ponds were taken in Wuhan.”  
  
The president gives a slow nod before he releases the divider he’d been holding onto and clears his throat, and with a hand, gestures to a chair beside his desk. “Be seated, Miss Huang.”

A brief pool of disappointment blooms in his chest as he sinks into the teak, somehow having expected his boss to be at least a smidgen more courteous than last time and offer him just one measly compliment about his handiwork, but now that Zitao has had a nose turned up at his work, insecurity begins to worm its way under his skin. “Do you have your documentation?” His boss asks flatly.

“They’re in the back of my portfolio,” he says in soft speak, “in the pocket on the inside cover.”

Wordlessly, President Wu procures his documents from their sleeve along the black casing and separates them diligently with agile fingers, and when Zitao catches a glimpse of his forged birth certificate in the man’s hands, his heartbeat stops. What if he can detect visible forgery? What if he surreptitiously calls security right on the spot and has Zitao sent to prison?   
  
He breathes an internal sigh of relief, however, when the man sets aside the certificate and moves his attention onto the résumé, Zitao’s disguised face stamped at the very top of the page with his skills and achievements listed below. “Following your confirmative phone call from the Treasurer, you were sent an email regarding your tax papers with each document attached in portable document format to be printed and filled out, yes?”

He nods, “Yes, sir, the tax papers should be in there, as well.”

He’s given only a split-second glance as the man tucks back into the stack of documents, and Zitao watches with bated mirth when the man’s features slacken as he spots the tax forms. “Your direct deposit form is attached, as well,” the president mutters to himself as he reads over the forms in Zitao’s handwriting. It’s when the president stills and grows quiet that he begins to wonder if he’s done something wrong, or worse, if the president has caught onto the act, and Zitao begins accepting his fate and planning his preferred method of death penalty - when the man reaches into a drawer beneath his desk and pulls out a booklet, merely papers stapled together with what look to be largely-gridded charts on the pages, and reaches for his pen as he says, “Alright, your height?”

Zitao blinks; does that mean he’s got the job? “One eighty-two centimeters.”

Listening, the president writes it down in the chart on the front. “Your weight.”

“Sixty-five kilograms.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the president’s eyebrow twitch. “As a stipulation of selling yourself within my brand, you will be required to put on a diet and exercise regime. For your height, you will be required to maintain no more than fifty-eight and no less than fifty-five. Am I understood?”

Something foreboding swirls in his gut, alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind as though premonitions telling him to run while he can. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s been fifty-eight kilograms - he had to be in tenth grade, maybe, right before his last growth spurt. Is he really supposed to lose _that_ much weight for this stupid job? “Yes, sir,” he recites as he trains his eyes on his lap.

“Mr. Wu,” the president states along a harsh edge, and Zitao looks up. “Address your staff formally and respectfully, Miss Huang.”

Oh. “Yes, Mr. Wu.”

Zitao had expected to be placed on some kind of diet - that’s what he’d always known professional modeling to be about, ever since he had gone over Luhan’s house for the very first time and had been given a paper cup filled with pretzels and a juice pouch, and had sat in front of the boy’s living room television and had been introduced to some show about modeling and plastic surgery. He’d known Luhan was into that kind of thing from that very moment, the very first time they ever hung out, and from then on had heard many horror stories regarding weight loss and the troubles that follow it.

However, it is one thing seeing it happen and feeling sorrowful and hungry for social change, and it is another to endure it yourself. 

The president clears his throat, then, and Zitao’s thoughts scatter. “Cool, warm, or neutral undertone?”

His features smooth in confusion; undertone? Is that, like, the color of your hair or something? “My… undertone of… what?” He questions with a perplexed crest to his voice, unsure of exactly what it is he is being asked. 

Slightly annoyed, his boss’ eyes shift away as he rolls through a dramatic sigh, “Your _skin_ , Miss Huang. I need to know the undertone of your skin to be able to color match you.”

_Color matching_. Zitao briefly remembers Luhan mentioning something about color matching, but what was it? He struggles to recall just what the man had said since Zitao had let it flow into one ear and right out the other in disinterest. “I, um,” he stammers under the rigidity of the man’s stare, suddenly small and vulnerable, “I don’t - I don’t actually know.”

Zitao’s innocence and naivety must prove very irritating to deal with, as the president deadpans a flat glare, aghast that someone could be so inexperienced and clueless to the ways of this world. After a few seconds, then, the man sets his tongue in his cheek as though forcing himself to calm down before beckoning Zitao closer with a hand, “Alright, come here,” he says, extending his palm as though for Zitao to take, “I’ll check it myself.”

Without preamble, the man wraps careful fingers underneath Zitao’s chin and hooks his index finger under the bone, pressing the pad of his thumb to the flat beneath his lip, and Zitao just might have a heart attack.

Under the close-ranged scrutiny, Zitao becomes too self-aware; from this vicinity, his boss could very easily just glance down and happen to fall across the shadow of his throat, or perhaps even glance down at his chest and maybe see the edges of the fake padding - Zitao doesn’t remember if he’d glued them down well enough or not because he hadn’t had the time to check. 

Yet, after a mere few seconds, the man pulls away and reaches for his pen as he says, “You’re in between warm and neutral.” 

Oh. Is that why Luhan was picking out makeup items for him with warm in the names? “So what’s - ”

“I record every employee’s undertones individually,” the president interrupts brusquely, and Zitao’s lips curl into a pout, “that way I can share the information with my appointed coordinators. This here,” he holds up the booklet, and Zitao’s eyes catch the elegant, fancy swirling of the man’s cursive, and at the top is his name in the man’s same handwriting - _Huang Yingtao_ , “is a color palette. I customize each booklet to each employee and take down their undertones and what colors I deem appropriately balanced with their undertone. Each shade that I list are colors you may find yourself having to wear should you promote my work. Am I making myself clear enough, Miss Huang?”

He nods, “Crystal,” and not a big fan of the cheeky remark, Mr. Wu cuts his vision away.

Zitao watches him write in colors inside of the grid blocks and he catches glimpses of some, such as _cream_ and _cappuccino_ and _pink_ , and he wonders what would happen if he were to come to work with something on that was not coordinated according to his recommended color palette. “You are best suited to warm tones, such as pinks and oranges,” the man continues to say, and with a keen eye, he sneaks a glance up at him amidst his writing. “Which means that outfit does not work on you.”

He frowns - does the blue really look that bad on his skin tone? He thought it made him look glowy and nice. “But I like it,” he says in a kiddish tone. “I think it looks cute.”

“I never said it was not attractive, Miss Huang,” the president repeats, “it merely is not attractive on _you_.”

Hurt, Zitao’s face falls as he blanches. “Excuse me?” He squeaks out, self-conscious as ever as he looks down at his blouse-denim combo, attractively paired in his own opinion, if he may say so. What is so wrong with the outfit he’s chosen for himself? As someone who has absolutely no previous knowledge or experience regarding matching colors, Zitao thought he hadn’t done too shabby of a job. “What’s so wrong with it?”

“It yellows your complexion,” Mr. Wu explains with folded hands and slackened elbows. “In editorial photography, tones that are too cool laid on a canvas that is too warm will saturate both entities, and in turn, can make warmer skin tones flash as the extreme of their undertone. In simpler terms, yellow undertones will flash more of an olive green, and pink undertones will flash very red when held against a shade too basic to counterbalance.”

“Isn’t that inclusive, though?” Zitao argues curiously. Is this guy actually serious being _this_ rude to a future employee? “That, to me, sounds like highlighting flaws and drawing attention to uniqueness.”

“Perhaps that is how you view it, Miss Huang, but I treat the undertones of skin as a focal point in my photography,” Mr. Wu tells him flatly, words sharp, and Zitao can hear the crackle of irritation beginning to soak into the edges of his voice. “And as a tip from your employer, you would be wise to hold your tongue to those more astute than yourself.”

“Then why do you require knowledge in photography if you won’t even take inexpert advice into consideration?”

Something in the president’s eyes changes, _snaps_ as one may call it, and Zitao gets the feeling his patience has begun to wear thin, “This is _my_ business,” he states, stone-faced, “and I run this business the way I feel free to. Precursory knowledge in photography is a necessity, not an opinion to be stated and have an effect on company policy with. And since you seem to be all-knowing of what standards I hold my employees to, perhaps I should fact check you on them, then.”

His eyes widen minutely, hands curling in his lap, as he sinks his teeth into his rouged bottom lip. Fuck, why does he keep opening his big mouth and speaking when not spoken to? One more wrong step and Zitao has a feeling his punishment will be taking his pride home in shreds. “Fact check?” He asks, blood running slightly cold.

“Exactly what it sounds like,” the president shrugs and leans back in his chair, looking the epitome of classy and powerful. “You tell me what I should look for in an employee since you seem to know more than the company president does.”

Zitao cannot help but be bewildered at the absolute gall of this man to not only be this sarcastic with him but to be this disrespectful to him - though, Zitao does suppose he had it coming. An eye for an eye, he realizes, because Mr. Wu is _toying_ with him. “Punctuality,” he says, attempting to dance around the word _respect_ , seeing as he hadn’t been able to keep his feelings to himself and had disrespected the owner of the company. 

Mr. Wu nods, “That is a good one, it is important. What else?”

He swallows, “Confidence. Presentation. Satisfactory attendance.”

“Yes, those are also good to have. Anything else?”

He knows what the man wants him to say and what he is aiming for in verbalized terms; he wants an apology. Zitao hates himself for never being able to find it in himself to just shut the fuck up when he needs to, as all it’s ever done is ruin opportunities for him. “I can’t think of anything else,” he lies, averting his gaze so that the man can no longer see right through him like glass. 

“How about respect, Miss Huang?” The president asks, and Zitao sinks his teeth into his lip. “Do you not think it would be a basic _necessity_ , not an _opinion_ , for an employee to have respect for their employer?

“I’m sorry, okay?” He blurts out, glossy-eyed as he makes contact with the president’s stare. “I really didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t thinking, and I don’t know as much as you, sir - I mean, Mr. Wu, you’re right. I know you told me to lay off the apologies, but I really am sorry, it won’t happen again!”

The man leans back with an exhale, then, and Zitao begins to feel the extent of the irreversible damage he’s already done - for one, on the slim chance that he isn’t fired on the spot, now, his reputation will be tarnished and he will be known as argumentative. On the other hand, he’s let the one and only great opportunity he’s had in his entire life slip right through his fingers all out of inexperience socializing with higher-class people. 

Then - Zitao could fucking _cry_ when the man’s countenance slowly unwinds when he says, “I told you to stop apologizing for actions that are noncommittal. What you have done was a committal act, one that shows a person’s true character as well as their reaction to adversity and fragility. If you have the capability within yourself to maintain humility, we do offer room and board on company grounds.”

He must honestly be _dreaming_ because there is no way in hell there exists an owner of a profitable, professional company that toys with their employees and then _hires_ said employees after having them metaphorically step all over their property. It’s only when he reaches up to wipe his vision free of tears that he realizes he is not, in fact, asleep, and that Mr. Wu is still giving him a look as equally trivial and pretentious as before, and it finally begins to sink in that he’s been given a second chance. “Does that mean I got the job?” He wonders out loud, and his eyes widen when he realizes he's verbalized it. 

Characteristically, the president rolls his eyes in a slow manner as he hands the completed palette booklet over to his employee. “There is a form on the back page to fill out should you be interested in rooming. Additionally, there is a mandatory initiation meeting first thing this Monday morning for all new employees, and you will not be eligible to begin working for this firm if you do not attend. Do I make myself clear, _Miss Huang_?”

Although having tried his best to quell the burst of emotions within him, a tear flits down his cheek in joy at just how lucky he’s gotten. “Crystal clear, sir,” he wipes his under-eyes once more and takes the booklet into his own hands. 

Without falter, the president stands from his seat and settles his hands behind the small of his back. “Do not take the events that have occurred here too close to heart, Miss Huang,” the president says with a cold stare. “A temperament like yours will not always be tolerated.”

“I understand, Mr. Wu,” he stands from his seat with a smile on his lips and hope in his heart. “I promise, I will work hard.”

“All additional questions you may have regarding your position here will have a chance to be answered at the initiation,” the man tells him alongside slow strides as he walks Zitao to the door. “You will meet coworkers and you will be assigned a coordinator whom you are to report to every day at the beginning of your shift after you clock in, and only at the meeting will you find out what department you will be placed in, as well. Do I need to repeat anything I have told you thus far, Miss Huang?”

Laying a hand on the extravagant silver handle on the frosted door, Zitao glances back over his shoulder to his boss stood several feet from him, eyebrows narrowed and expression slightly perplexed, and Zitao wonders if he’s been annoying to him, perhaps. “No thank you, sir,” he grins and offers a slow bow to make up for the rough patch where he’d lacked respect. “Thank you so much for giving me a second chance.”

Just as stoic, though, the president gives him a curt nod to indicate his thanks have been accepted, and the only thing he offers as a parting statement is a clear, “See you on Monday, Miss Huang.”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
When Zitao exits the president’s quarters, he’s only slightly shocked when Luhan practically _bombards_ him when the door shutters closed, something much more along the lines of hovering like a shadow, and Zitao’s face softens as hands grab him by the shoulders. “So? How did it go?”

Feeling innovative and full of creativity, Zitao greys out his aura and slumps his shoulders as his eyes begin to droop, sadness painted across his features. Visibly confused, his best friend’s smile dims before flattening out entirely. When he asks if Zitao had managed to get the job, Zitao shakes his head.

“Oh my God,” Luhan expresses softly, arms opening instinctively and wrapping around the boy’s frame. “I’m so sorry, kid. I thought it would be okay.”

Zitao cries into his hair, small fleeting sobs in the comfort of his best friend’s embrace, voice undulating as though gasping, as though sorrowing, as though… laughing.

Puzzled, he pulls away just a tad, just enough to peer up at the boy’s face through the strands of his own hair, and yes, he was right - Zitao is fucking _laughing_.

As a cheeky grin creeps across the boy’s pinked lips, the gears in Luhan’s mind begin to turn once more as his thoughts once again fall into place, and he can’t resist tearing himself away and laying a slap down onto the boy’s forearm as he exclaims, “You bitch! I thought you were sad!”

“That’s payback,” Zitao smiles from ear to ear. “Of course I got the job, but I mean, being me, I almost fucked it up again, but you know.”

“Tao, can you stop fucking up opportunities?” His best friend laughs, and Zitao’s chest blooms in warmth. “I’m so proud of you, kid, look how far you’ve come. And you said you wouldn’t be able to do it.”

He shrugs, then, overflowing with happiness and gleaming in pride, “I guess I need to start being optimistic, after all. Oh! I should go tell mom!”

Zitao begins to walk away, before the blonde reaches out and pulls him back with a pinch to the fold of his blouse sleeve, “Hold on a second, Tao-ah,” he says, and Zitao’s face swirls in confusion. “I have work soon, remember? So I can either drop you right off or bring you home first so you can take yourself. Which one would you prefer?”

Oh, right. Luhan has a shift in a few hours, and Zitao would hate to be the Bearer of Bad News upon his old manager who still resents him for his outspokenness by saying _hey sorry I kind of just had a life-changing opportunity fall into my hands and your employee cannot come in today because we need to celebrate_. And besides, how would his mother even react if he all of a sudden decided to show up at the hospital looking the way he does now? Knowing his mother, she would more than likely have an actual heart attack out of shock, or else call security and have him forcefully removed from the premise should she not recognize him. Either way, it is not a situation he’d like to be in. “I guess I should go home first,” he answers. “Meeting her like this would probably be bad.”

His best friend laughs, “Makes sense. Hey, later after my shift, wanna go out for some drinks? It’ll be on me, my treat.”

He ponders it for just a brief moment before replying with, “Will I have to go out as a woman?”

Then, his friend just sighs with a grin of content on his face, “Of course you will. Come on, princess, let’s get you home.”

“Don’t call me princess!”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Zitao might have some eyeliner residue left over - he’s not entirely sure; after several wipes later and plenty of worries that he’s going to get chemicals into his eyes, he’d given up and had dressed in a pair of mismatching sweats and headed out the door with his keys and his phone. 

Now that the worst of the storm was very clearly over, Zitao could finally breathe again. He can’t deny, however, that he’d gotten extremely lucky being let off the hook like that - now that he thinks back on it, he couldn’t believe his own behavior. Why had he thought that speaking out like that would have been a good idea? He hadn’t been the least bit respectful to Mr. Wu’s own beliefs and his own preferences regarding photography - he’d been selfish, butting in with his own opinion like that, as if he were the owner himself. He doesn’t think he will ever stop being grateful to Mr. Wu for having a change of heart like that, especially not when something tells him he won’t get another freebie like this.

The hospital is mild as always, not necessarily busy but not empty, either, and he signs in at the front desk as usual. “Hello, Zitao,” the secretary smiles at him, and he returns the gesture with a forceful tug of his lips. “Enjoying the weather?”

“Somewhat,” he says flippantly, riding on the high of his newfound Great Mood. “I just got out of a job interview, so I came to tell my mother how it went.”

“Ooh!” The secretary coos. “Good for you. Well, you know where to go. Have a good day, Zitao.”

He accepts the appraisal before turning and heading to the left to his mother’s room, the third door on the left at the very edge of the foyer just before the mouth of a long, narrow hallway leading out into the patio, door framed by potted plants. 

His mother’s door is usually always closed, it being so close to the lobby and the overall din of the lobby chatter tends to filter into her room. Zitao doesn’t blame her; restless chitchat can get quite annoying when you are trying to sleep. 

Which is why he glances up from his keyring which he’d tucked away into his back pocket, he’s surprised to find his mother’s door _open_ \- the lights inside off, nonetheless. Fearing the absolute worst, Zitao’s stomach drops.

It’s not like her to turn the lights off and leave the door ajar, and when he peeks in, he remembers that it’s definitely not like her to _not be in her room_ without Zitao’s prior knowledge. 

What if something happened?

He’s darting back to the desk before he can even have a second thought about it, his expression frazzled and his nerves alight. The patrons stood at the desk for help gasp when he stumbles to the counter, and the secretary’s eyes widen at the movement. “Where is Doctor Kim?” He blurts out, and the secretary blinks in momentary confusion. “Doctor Kim Joonmyun, where is he?”

She frowns, then, and her head cocks just a few degrees before she says, “Doctor Kim should be in his office right now since his next procedure isn’t scheduled until eleven-thirty. Should I page him for you?”

“Yes please,” he exhales shakily, and the secretary offers him a piteous look as she says _hold on one moment please_ , and lifts the corded desk phone to her ear. 

Some of the people who have organized themselves into a patient line give him looks, some negative and some of worry, but Zitao pays them no mind, for he knows that if they were even remotely close to being in his shoes, they would be reacting exactly the same way. This is not the day for this - he’s just had the _best_ moment of his entire life, it can’t all come crashing down like this. He’s had no time to prepare.

The secretary hangs up the phone, and the loud double-click of the phone settling into the dock gets his attention. “Doctor Kim will be right out for you,” she says, and Zitao nods in thanks as he steps away from the desk to allow access to the others who have had to wait.

He supposes that the best place to hover would not be in the waiting room around other worried patients, but rather around his mother’s door, that way Doctor Kim would not have to look hard for him on the off chance that he has forgotten Zitao’s appearance, even though the boy just saw him last Wednesday. 

It’s only a few seconds that he waits, but for Zitao, it feels like a few eternities, before he hears heavy footsteps and glances over his shoulder to see Doctor Kim approaching him with a clipboard in hand, his medical coat swaying with the speed of his gait. “You wanted to see me, Zitao?” He asks in a tone that Zitao could only describe as flustered, and he begins to feel guilty for possibly worrying the staff.

“Yes, I’m sorry if you were busy,” he apologizes and fiddles with his fingers. “I, um - do you know where my mother is?”

“Oh,” Doctor Kim lays a hand on his abdomen over his corduroy sweater and breathes out a sigh of relief. “Of course, she is upstairs in the activity den. We are so sorry to have worried you, Zitao, but I can assure you she is alright because I am the one that brought her there.”

“Can I go see her?” He asks anxiously. 

However, Doctor Kim slides his free hand into his overcoat pocket and sighs full-bodied. “Unfortunately I cannot let you up there, Zitao. The den is off-limits to visitors. I can, however, take a message for her or have you come back later if you would prefer.”

Oh. That does sound like his mother, he has to admit. Could she happen to be talking to that lady Lanfen, again? “It’s not an emergency, sir,” he grins awkwardly, and Doctor Kim chuckles with a shake of the head. “I can come back. Do you know what a good time would be to return?”

“I’d say after lunchtime,” Doctor Kim tells him cheerfully. “Don’t worry, she’s been enjoying getting out of her room once or twice a week like this. You know, getting to interact with other people and whatnot. We’ve been talking to her about it for a few weeks now.”

“I’m glad she’s enjoying it. I will come back later then, sir,” he nods. “Sorry for worrying you.”

Passively, Doctor Kim waves him off comedically and there’s just something about the man that feels strangely paternal to him, and it makes Zitao miss having a father, sometimes. However, knowing his own father and his own ways and personality, it is not _his father_ that he finds himself missing, but rather a companion to live with and learn from on a regular basis. With his mother in the state she is in and will more than likely remain in for the remainder of her time on the planet, Zitao has no expectation for the two to reconcile or for his mother to find someone new.

After the doctor disappears from the view, Zitao heads back to the front desk to ask the secretary for a pen and a piece of paper and writes his mother a note to then slip it beneath the crack of her door.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
With a hefty breath, he dumps armfuls of transparent poster tubes onto his dining table, the plastic clattering loudly against the wood and Zitao has to practically spread him over the top of the table to prevent some of the tubes from rolling off the edges. 

This week he’s made about four hundred - mostly twenty-four-by-thirty-sixes but when he checks his blog, he notices that he’s gotten some requests to begin offering postcard sizes as well as digital prints, and Zitao is intrigued and ever willing to please. 

_So, for digital prints, I think I’ll start at a rate of ten dollars, and for postcards five, and we’ll see what happens from there._

He frowns, then, as he reads down the list of his recent sales. Has he made _more_ since opening his sister blog? If he checks his traffic statistics off to the side of the page, he realizes that yes, he’s gotten more traffic all because of his disguised photos and his portrait photographs. Do girls really get this much attention on a regular basis? Zitao can’t believe it.

On the positive side of the coin, this kind of thing could not only be good for Zitao’s chances of landing a good spot in the firm, but could also be beneficial for his own personal business and therefore, could help him to rake in more revenue to help support his mother and keep her alive even longer. 

And on top of that, people are actually asking to purchase some of the prints of Luhan - like those from the amusement park that he had put in his portfolio for work. He would never have been able to imagine that something so small and trivial as a hobby could take off this way and earn him such a following, and the thought brings tears to his eyes. 

He knows he will never be able to express to the entire world just how thankful he is.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

A knock at his door steals his attention from packaging his prints and capping the tubes, and he yells out a “ _Coming_!” as he lays the finished tubes down and gets off of his seat.

When he opens his front door, he’s not too surprised to see Luhan posed behind the wood, arm leaned intimately against the framing and a tantalizing smirk on his lips as he says, “So I heard someone was missing their boyfriend?”

Disgusted, Zitao’s nose scrunches, “Don’t be cheesy in my fucking doorway,” he complains, and his best friend laughs in a hearty bellow and lets himself into Zitao’s apartment. “At least do it after I’ve had some dinner.”

The blonde sets his bag off to the side on Zitao’s island countertop, thudding noisily onto the polished granite. “Speaking of dinner, I bought some supplies to make your _favorite_ ,” he sing-songs, and Zitao prostrates himself against the wall as he awaits his daily dose of Being Impressed. “Got some meat, some spring onions, some peppers - we’re making beef stir-fry.”

“I’m glad to know you’re going to wine and dine me first,” Zitao jokes, and his best friend dramatically pats his own back in the middle of Zitao’s compressed kitchen. 

He helps Luhan unload the groceries from inside the man’s backpack, the pack of triple-bagged beef to avoid leakage, the spring onions, the raw, bulbous peppers, a package of mushrooms, a carrot, a handful of shallots, and the bottle of oils and sauces. “I thought we were just going to have some drinks,” Zitao admits as he sets the package of beef off to the side. “I was promised some alcohol.”

“Uh, unless you want to throw up all over the fuckin’ place and have the world’s worst hangover, you are not drinking on an empty stomach,” Luhan instructs in a stern voice, and Zitao rolls his eyes as his friend bends to procure Zitao’s wok from the cupboard. “And as the designated drinking friend with a much higher alcohol tolerance than you, I’m going to be responsible for how you drink. Capiche?”

“Okay, okay,” he holds up both hands in a truce, metaphorically waving his own white flag. “So are we just casual drinking, or are we getting fucked up?”

Luhan ponders that for a moment amidst slicing a spring onion on the cutting board, “Well, I’m currently a _Susan, homemaker, thirty who enjoys a single glass of Moscato_ and I’d like to be _Angelina who gets kicked out of the bar after five Jägerbombs and passes out on the sidewalk in a puddle of her own vomit_.”

He laughs, then, eyebrows furrowing in disbelief at the humorous statement. “So, we’re getting fucked up.”

“ _Safely_ fucked up,” his best friend corrects him, the picture of filial and responsible. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t get to ask you yet how your mom took the news. Was she happy for you?”

Ah, that’s right - Zitao had intended to stop by the hospital again around noon, but had fallen asleep on the couch due to barely sleeping between his attacks last night, and by the time he’d woken up, it had been already nearing supper which meant that Luhan had only been mere minutes away before he would have pulled up to the complex. _Note to self: go to a doctor and see if you can get put on a sleeping medication specifically meant for anxiety._ “I actually didn’t get a chance to tell her yet,” Zitao admits, and his friend gives him an offhanded hum with a questioning lilt. “Well, I went this morning after you dropped me off. Came home, changed clothes, took my makeup off and all that. Then I got to the hospital and Doctor Kim had told me that my mother was doing her biweekly socialization up in the activity den, which is off-limits to all visitors.”

“Oh,” Luhan coos briskly. “Well, at least she’s okay. You didn’t try again a few hours later?”

He laughs nervously, passing the sliced strips of raw beef to his friend atop the cutting board. “I, uh - kind of fell asleep by accident and took a really long nap. I barely slept last night.”

“The attacks?” His friend asks, knowing very well how many times Zitao had to ring him throughout the course of the night. Being someone that normally averages a whopping twelve hours, however, Luhan had not been the least bit sleepy despite having his sleep interrupted several times. 

“Yeah. I mean, I did get _some_ sleep, but it was probably only a couple of hours because I did get up really early this morning so I didn’t have to panic when getting ready.”

Although not physically frail, Zitao is a very emotionally delicate person, and as much as he tries to show that he isn’t, Luhan knows him like the skin on the back of his hands. Zitao is someone who cries easily, yet at the same time, can withstand a lot of battery without showing much emotion. When in times of fragility, however, say if his self-esteem is low, Zitao can be as feeble as a fabergé egg. 

“You needed the sleep, though,” Luhan reminds him in a homely tone. “It’s alright, it happens. Besides, your mom will understand if you explain it to her. So, are you excited for your first day?”

Although plenty excited to start a new chapter in the journey of his life and to finally get his hands on his first paycheck, there’s also the underlying layer of fear that something may go wrong or that Zitao may get found out when he least expects it, and aside from public embarrassment, he fears public execution even more. Having been conflicted over whether or not this is a fantastic idea or a stupid idea, Zitao doesn’t quite know. “I, uh, haven’t made up my mind yet,” he cracks with a lopsided smile, and his friend snorts out a humored chuckle in response. 

“You’ll do great, Tao, I know you will. Do you know what you’re going to wear?”

It being Friday, he knows he only has a mere couple of days until his first day, and it both feels too quick yet not quick enough. After he wakes up tomorrow, Zitao is going to make it a point to spend a few hours of his time attempting to match outfits so he will not have to rush each and every morning. “Not yet,” he tells him honestly. “My fuckin’ boss actually told me what I can and can’t wear, can you believe that?”

His friend stills at that, knife lax in his hand as he wraps his hand around the bottom of a pepper. “Well, yeah, Tao, most work environments have dress codes.”

An eye roll. “No, not like that. I mean he told me what colors I can and can’t wear. Like, this morning he told me my outfit was cute, but not cute on _me._ Can you believe that?”

“What?” His friend blurts out mid-julienne. “Are you serious? What a fucking douchebag. Don’t listen to him, Tao, you looked great this morning.”

“Yeah, he gave me some speech about _artistic freedom_ ,” Zitao explains with air-quotes, and his best friend snorts. “As if I was insulting his artistic ego by wearing blue when my skin is warm-toned.”

“Was he wearing blue?”

Zitao nods, “Yeah. Navy blue.”

“Then I’ll bet five dollars that he’s got no fucking room to talk,” Luhan grins as he slides the beef into the oiled wok with a wooden spoon, and when Zitao is overcome with the lustrous scent of garlic and sesame oil, his stomach begins to growl. “Hey, Zitao’s Stomach, you have no room to talk, either.”

Zitao laughs and gives him a playful shove before returning to the other loin of beef. Despite being nitpicked this morning, Zitao feels good. He thrives along a sense of accomplishment that he’s overcome a large hurdle, that he’s defied his own odds and has proven to himself that he truly can do something if he puts his mind to it. 

Perhaps it may still be slightly unorthodox in the eyes of those who do not approve, but Zitao feels as though the heavens had graced him with one final chance - one he could not possibly ignore nor refuse.

He hopes from the very depths of his heart that while this decision may be putting his own safety and his own mental state at risk, that his mother will prosper from it and will live to see him one day walk down the aisle and say his infamous _I do_ , and that above all, she will be proud of him for trying his hardest. 

The thought glues a permanent smile to Zitao’s curved lips, and over the course of the evening and after several drinks, it begins to creep his best friend out.  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
There’s a frog in his throat when he wakes up - esophageal reflux, followed by the urge to profusely vomit because it’s finally Monday, and yet again when he needs it the most, Zitao finds it hard to breathe.

Zitao has to walk himself through his routine measures to alleviate the pressure in his throat and give his body back the permission to breathe, by forcing himself to drink water and by reaching for his inhaler in the nightstand drawer next to his bed. It’s more annoying than it is frightening to wake up close to each morning with his throat in knots and the inability to intake air. As someone who has finally found a reason to go out into the world and _live_ , Zitao doesn’t much appreciate the universe trying to have him killed. 

Although bothersome and heavier on the breath restriction, this attack is nowhere near the severity of the one he had early Friday morning in the middle of the night.

And amid his battle to force his eyes to remain open and turn his alarm off, _six-thirty_ his alarm reads in blinking green font, Zitao both feels the desire to burrow back into the safety of his bed and have them fire him so he will no longer have to come in, and show up bright and early in the most chipper of moods and face his fears head-on. 

But which one is the more _doable_ option?

Zitao doesn’t know.

He decides to start his morning with the hardest part of this long-term disguise - his hair and makeup. 

Of course, with hands as shaky as his and a composure as frazzled as his, Zitao hurts himself several times with the extension clips and hisses out his expletives of pain. After several minutes of fussing, he smooths a hand over the back of his head and feels sadness rush through him when his fingertips graze the ridges of the clips, indicating he hasn’t installed them well enough like Luhan had. It being six-thirty in the morning, however, Luhan would still be fast asleep and Zitao doesn’t have the time to ask him to come over and help.

Although unable to see the back, he thinks that the sides look alright, but out of pure self-consciousness, he decides to tie the upper half up in a lazy ponytail that cascades down the rest of his hair, the obvious tendrils of his shorter hair sticking out at the ends. Shit, what was he supposed to do about that? He doesn’t remember how exactly his friend had assessed it.

Oh, right - didn’t he straighten his hair?

Zitao thanks every God above that Luhan had left him a straightener, and he hastily plugs it in to wait for it to heat up as he heads into his room to begin his makeup.

Right, so Mr. Wu specifically said _no cool colors._ That means no grays. Zitao hopes that he can do no grays.

He decides to go with a pink base - light in hue, something just a notch away from natural yet cute and refreshing. If he’s going to have a daily coordinator to do makeup on him throughout the period of his shift, as Mr. Wu had mentioned Friday morning, he’s going to assume that doing an entire full face of extravagant makeup would only be a waste of his time. Yet, he knows he has to do _something_ to look more convincing.

He wonders, as he bounces his makeup sponge against his cheeks and covers up his under-eye circles, if his other coworkers will come to work with makeup on? He wants to assume the answer would be yes, but at the same time, he is not sure what kind of mindstate someone who wears makeup regularly would have after being on a job for so long. He wonders if some days, the other girls would be too tired to put any on and would show up to work bare-faced. Albeit curious, Zitao finds himself too self-aware and wary to attempt to go into work bare-faced. 

And in regards to those girls that do wear makeup to work, how much do they wear? Do they apply lightly akin to Zitao’s method, or do they go all-out and layer on color and glow in the sunlight? Zitao finds himself so uncharacteristically curious.

Then comes the hard part - trying to apply things to his eyes. Inexperienced in every way, Zitao doesn’t trust himself to not blink when he attempts to swipe mascara onto his eyelashes and darken them just a bit. 

How is Luhan so calm when he does this kind of thing to people? Zitao wants to assume it’s just mere years of practice, but even so, he isn’t sure how Luhan’s hands don’t shake and how he doesn’t screw up even occasionally.

He’s got to make a mental note to ask Luhan sometime how he remains so still and unwavering when applying makeup to people because that’s a skill Zitao can definitely get behind learning. 

When he finally finishes his makeup, he doesn’t think he’s done too shabby of a job with the brushes Luhan had purchased for him - but then again, it seems like the kind of a natural look that someone would aim for would they not want people to know they were wearing much at all. Oh well, Zitao thinks to himself. It’ll just have to do. 

Besides - he thinks he looks quite feminine now, and that realization brings him happiness and makes him smile, cheeks rosy and lips glistening.

It’s then that he remembers he’d plugged the flatiron in, and rushes into his attached bathroom to straighten his hair.

He gets adventurous near the end, after having straightened and curled the ends of his own hair inward, and wonders if perhaps he could do a little bit of wave action to the ends of the extensions - and, yeah, no, that looks like shit. Alright, scratch that bright idea. 

And behind every fuck-up is a pack of gemstone-encrusted barrettes, similar to the ones Luhan had put in his hair after his makeover. 

_Alright, I have twenty minutes before I have to leave. What the fuck do I wear?_

He stares at his closet with blank thoughts, mind blurred and completely devoid of an idea as he sorts through plaids and florals and brocades, solids and duo-solids, satins and corduroys and wools, entirely and utterly _lost._

He lays a hand across the paired outfits he’d made Saturday afternoon, mulberry matched with eggshell and cream paired with cappuccino, yet the vivids swim around messily with no matches, as Zitao has no experience matching vivids whatsoever and had gotten a headache just by the brightness of the hues. 

With pink-toned makeup, a pink-toned outfit would be suited best, right? 

He reaches for a pre-matched outfit, a rich cranberry blouse with a white-washed denim skirt, one with frays along the hem and black stitching, a nice contrast if Zitao does say so himself. And black shoes - he thinks to himself - would probably look nice along with this, right? 

The outfit feels nice on his skin, but he can’t help but feel naked and exposed; then again, this is probably the longest his legs have ever seen the light in his entire life. 

And the rush of empowerment that flows through him as his shoes click on the flooring with each step is definitely a plus, as well. 

 _Ten minutes_ , he realizes. Ten minutes until he’s got to leave to head to the company building. 

His hands falter against the refrigerator handle as he reaches for a piece of fruit to eat when he remembers that he needs his portfolio - as it’s got his information as well as his required color palette in it - and he doesn’t remember where he last left it.

Shit, where the fuck would he have put it?

He tries to retrace his steps, remembering that he had brought it in from the interview and had taken it into the living room - but then what? He could have sworn he’d laid it on the coffee table or else on his kitchen counter, yet when he glances over, it’s in neither spot and he begins to wonder if perhaps he’s losing his mind. 

He panics as the clock ticks down, as he grabs a bag from his closet and tosses his keys and his miniature belongings into it, still unable to figure out where the fuck he put his portfolio. Is he just going crazy? Did he maybe put it in his car already, or leave it in his room?

No, that wouldn’t make much sense; he wouldn’t have taken his portfolio to the hospital with him to have placed it in his car, and Luhan had been the one to bring him home with it in hand. 

Wait - hadn’t he put it on his vanity?

He rushes back into his bedroom, knees straining as he dashes in heeled shoes and when he glances over at his vanity, he feels like punching himself in the face because he’d laid the sleek black book down next to his stack of eyeshadow palettes, ones he’d glanced at just minutes prior.

Jesus fucking _Christ_ , he needs a coffee.

The drive to the office is one that Zitao had imagined would have been smooth and unproblematic, yet he realizes all too quickly that he sets too high of standards for himself, as at least three times that he’s kept track of, he’s almost swerved and crashed just out of the sheer falter of his shaky hands, breaths short and shuddery as the minutes diminish. He thought he would have been alright to drive by himself, too guilty to bother Luhan this early in the day, but Zitao begins to wonder if he needs to go on daily medication to take ahead of time so he doesn’t jitter and threaten his own life. 

He’s not all too surprised, however, when he finds it difficult to find parking in the company lot. Considering this is by no means a small business, he’s not that surprised to have to walk an extended distance with his portfolio in hand and his heart hammering in his throat, his insoles soft against the soles of his feet as they cushion his toes and the balls of his heels. He’s glad he remembered to grab the insoles, seeing as he could barely remember to grab his own legal documentation. Priorities.

This early in the day, the lot is quite flooded with people exiting their cars and heading into the building in a similar fashion, and Zitao safely assumes that the company physically opens at eight, and perhaps that is why his initiation was scheduled for eight. 

It’s also safe to assume, as he sees some women dressed in flatter shoes and thicker pants, that Zitao might not stick out like a sore thumb should he one day go into work in a mere sweatsuit and sneakers. Though, he knows he must verify for himself by observing his coworkers if that would be a wise decision, or not. 

Then - it’s as he’s passing through the automated glass double-doors, sliding back with a soft motorized hum and the comforting gust of the air conditioning breezes past him, that he recalls that yet again, he was never informed of where this initiation was going to take place.

He wants to assume that it would be in a presentation room akin to the one where his first interview had been held, yet at the same time, the presentation room hadn’t been all that big, and if Zitao had not been the only one to apply for the job within the last month, how would they manage to fit all of those women into a room of that size?

 _Alright, Zitao_ , he thinks to himself as he coils his fingers tighter around the bound spine of his portfolio. _It’s time to wear your Big Girl panties and ask for your own directions. Luhan isn’t here anymore to do it for you._

He takes in a careful breath as he approaches the front desk, the same secretary from Friday morning typing away at her desktop computer, and squeaks out, “Excuse me, miss.”

Her eyes meet his over the silvery rim of her glasses, lashes dark and irises bright, and she asks, “Yes, how may I help you?”

He licks over his bottom lip out of nervousness, tongue thick against his teeth as he tries to piece together the sentences in his mind before speaking them and setting them in stone. “I, um - I have an initiation meeting to attend in a few minutes, with - with the president. Would you, uh… would you happen to know where that might be held? I - I wasn’t informed.”

“Oh,” she chimes curtly, eyes returning to her screen and fingers returning to the tap of her keyboard letters. “The mandatory initiation for all new employees, is that correct?”

He nods, “Yes, miss.”

“In the black-box theater,” she explains, pen in hand as an instrument of instruction. “Down this hall here to your left, down the stairs after the elevators, and it’s the door at the end of the short hall. It’s the only door in there, you can’t really miss it.”

Zitao finds it discordantly heartwarming how you can’t really miss it seems to be one of the secretary’s token phrases, something he’s heard multiple times already, and it makes her appear just that little bit more approachable and human. “Thank you so much,” he smiles at her, giving her a fluid nod of the head which he receives in return gratuitously, and heads off to the hallway on his left.

Just like the other day, the elevator doors gleam on the side of the wall, yet he hadn’t had the time nor the know-how to have explored further on Friday. Past the dual doors is a geometrically-shaped archway, what would probably be a door but is merely cut-away, and indeed, it leads to a staircase that both descends and ascends on either side of him, offering him choices of where to go. Hastily, he takes the stairs leading him down into the base floor.

He wonders why they would have a theater underground - the foyer being the main floor and being ground-level, he wonders if perhaps they’ve used the theater before as sort of a refuge from natural disaster, it being just a bit safer being underground. 

He attracts a few wandering glances - the undertones, of which, he is unable to pinpoint, but he hopes they are less than malevolent. Bravely, he forces himself to ignore the looks he receives and presses his portfolio closer to his chest.

Past the door that exits the staircase, the hallway bends in a quick right turn, and just after the turn lays a set of tall, wood-burnished doors, ones he presumes lead to the black-box theater, as the secretary had told him.

The theater is both every bit as massive as he had imagined and more so, at that. Along the walls are absolutely tremendous photographs of women - whether employees or role models, he isn’t sure - all of such high quality and in beautiful light and with gorgeous prints, and Zitao’s photographer heart beats with jealousy - and above the door, the largest round clock he thinks he’s ever seen and will ever see, ticking hands smithed with delicate swirls and done in a warm ebony. Rows upon rows of violet-patented seats descend for what feels like miles before stopping mere meters before the shapely protrusion of the stage, black and sleek and decorated at the edges with round, white lights, illuminated as the room is being used. Among the stage is a single wooden podium placed in the very middle at the front, black curtains many yards back having been drawn together to close the backstage area off. In the several front rows sit probably over a dozen women he’s never before seen, some with long hair and some with short hair shaped into pixie layers. Similarly, some of them are also dressed very smartly and neatly in muted colors and baby creams, and some of them are dressed just slightly less formal in boots that lace up and sandals that glimmer in the lights.

Being the shy one he is, Zitao takes a seat in the eighth row back from the front in the center, one where no other females reside. 

 _Alright, deep breaths, Zitao_ , he reminds himself as he settles into a seat, soft and cushioned, and lays his portfolio down on his lap. _Deep breaths. You’ve come this far, come on. Keep going._

When he glances at his cell phone inside his shoulder bag for the time, he sighs in relief to know he’s got a whopping four minutes before the initiation was set to begin. As he soaks up his scenery, however, the starkly floral scent of miscellaneous perfumes hits him all at once, and it becomes very real that he’s surrounded by a bunch of pretty women and is one of them, and when he realizes just how attractive they all are with their high cheekbones, glittered and sparkly, their expensive, shiny shoes and their straight postures, he remembers that he is garbage compared to such breathtaking, scholarly ladies.

He wrings his hands together nervously in his lap and glancing around, accidentally catching a few glances and he wishes it weren’t so obnoxious that the looks were anything but friendly. He sincerely hopes that they are merely wondering who he is and not _what_ he is, and he hopes that nobody can see right through him just by a first glance.

A loud, resonant click off to the side of the grandiose room catches his as well as the other ladies’ attention, and they all turn their heads to the source of the noise. The president makes his way down the railed stairs to the slanted flooring, followed by two women in the shadows of his steps that Zitao wonders if are perhaps other secretaries of his, or maybe one could be the vice president? Then who would the other woman be?

Zitao’s stomach twists funnily as the president steps onto the stage and the women take seats in the very front row of seats, in full aerial view of the podium as though helpers or judges. Zitao wonders what their position could be under this firm.

“Good morning, ladies,” the president says in that same flat, husky tone of his, lilting just a little bit for emphasis near the end, broad hands resting on the lifts of the podium. Zitao is quiet as the rest of the crowd responds to him with an equally linear _good morning, Mr. Wu_. “I would expect that everybody that I have interviewed in the past four weeks should be here. If not, I’ve locked the door on my way in, because you will find out that I don’t give second chances. Tough luck for those that haven’t made it.”

Among the soft din of humored laughter, Zitao finds himself sweating.

“As you were all told,” the president repeats, dark hair combed back and suit a peppered gunmetal gray, “this is your required initiation to begin working here at _KW Industries._ Over the course of my presentation, I will discuss your individual positions here, as well as rules and regulations that I require you all to follow in more extensive detail than I was allotted when one-on-one. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Wu,” he finds himself saying among the unison of the crowd. 

Mr. Wu nods curtly after the approval before stating into the microphone, “You have all been contracted during your interviews, meaning you have wavered yourself into this company knowing that you will be expected to abide by all stipulations involved in this practice. Should you go against your signed word, your contract will automatically be voided and you will be promptly fired or in lesser cases, re-contracted and demoted. Am I understood?”

He frowns while the man is speaking, seeming to have slept through being instructed to sign a contract of any sort. Was he supposed to be contracted? As far as he remembers, the president hadn’t mentioned anything about a contract, if not very little. Is there something he was supposed to have done?

“Yes, Mr. Wu.”

“This job has a very high performance expectancy. The margin of error in this career path is exceptionally small, and I have absolutely no tolerance for bullshit. While mistakes you may make might be considered small and not life-threatening, they threaten my reputation as a designer and a creator. Keep in mind, you are here to promote and benefit this company. Should you have any qualms about being treated materialistically, I recommend that you approach me privately when need be and have your contract voided. Am I understood?”

Zitao chimes in among the crowd, nerves buzzing at every mention of things that he could do wrong and things he knows he will do wrong because Zitao is notorious for fucking things up.

President Wu intakes a slow breath, straightening his spine and adjusting his step. “Should you need to breach your contract for any reason, I will only excuse it should you find yourself in a medical emergency that applies to only you, or to your direct family. Any incident that befalls you enough to affect your work performance should be brought to my attention immediately and will be dealt with accordingly.”

Among the words, Zitao can’t help but think back to spilling out his feelings and his fears about his mother’s medical condition at his first interview, and the sharp, stressed look that Mr. Wu had given him for a split-second. It had been so fast that Zitao could have blinked and missed it, but he’d seen it, nonetheless, in the stressed knot of the man’s eyebrows and the narrow edge to his glare. He could be chalking it up to more than it is, but he can’t help but feel that the look in his eyes had been… _concerned._

No, he’s probably just imagining things.

“Individually,” Mr. Wu says clearly, and Zitao’s thoughts settle down, “you were all given instructions to remain within a policy-executed weight requirement, each one personalized to each individual height. Each week when you come in for your shift every Friday morning, you will be measured and weighed and your results will be recorded and stored in company files. As part of your contracting, you will have no say in your weight fluctuating if your assigned coordinator does not find fault in it. Additionally, your coordinators are not your friends. They are my staff as much as you are my staff. They are not here to be your diaries and allow you to vent your shifts away; they are here to weigh you, measure you, and dress you.”

His eyes widen minutely, eyebrows raising; this is an awfully strict job, isn’t it? Even when he waited tables, he wasn’t literally prevented from making friends with his coworkers. If the coordinators are higher up than the models, yet are equally staff just like he is, why wouldn’t it be okay for him to at least try to bond with his own? This seems a little bit unfair. 

“Now,” the president interrupts his train of thought, “while on the topic of relationships, there will be absolutely no employee-employee intercrural bonding. While on company grounds, you are paid to do a job and promote a company. You are not paid to kiss one another or hold one another; leave it at home, and when you return home for the day from your shift, it will be there waiting for you. Now, onto safety. As a product of the corporation, it is preemptive that you do not engage in any strenuous acts that would put your capability to perform up to my standards at risk. This includes weight training outside of company supervision and extraprofessional activities such as physical labor and extreme climbing. Should you happen to have a part-time job outside of this firm that requires physical labor, I will instruct you now to promptly quit and prioritize coming here. Do I make myself clear?”

His fingers tap anxiously along the smoothly textured skin of his book as he says, “Yes, Mr. Wu.”

The president takes a lax step back, then, head tilting back just a little bit as though relaxing, and Zitao wonders if the president ever becomes tense. As a human, he would assume so, but he is also someone of much higher social status than Zitao is. Do rich people ever become tense the way poorer people do?

“All of this information, by the way, can be found in your contracts,” Mr. Wu pipes up, a half-step away from the microphone, his voice just a smidgen quieter from the distance. “I would not be shocked if none of you even read through the contracts in detail extensive enough to have noticed all of this.”

Again - the contracting. Zitao doesn’t understand what the president is talking about, or why the other new employees nod their head at the mention of their contracts as though they know more than he does. Why doesn’t he know anything about contracting?

Oh, no. There’s the familiar anxiety, again, prompting him to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t even physically hired in the first place and was lead on by looking too much into the context of what he had been told. Upset and frazzled, Zitao could cry.

“Oh!” The president chimes then, lips curling into something that Zitao doesn’t think he’s ever seen, not a smile but not a smirk either; it’s something he would best describe as a forced scowl of thought. He wonders why the president never seems to have happiness in any of his expressions no matter the mood or context. “On the topic of strenuous activities - although an employer, I cannot dictate what you do outside of work hours. I cannot force you to stop seeing somebody or stop having sex. However, I can force you to remain in work and take safety measures with how you live your social life. Each one of you will be written a referral from me to give to your general practitioner and you will be required to be put on birth control. I cannot afford to give extended maternity leave, so I would prefer you refrain from pregnancy altogether. Should you not be able to contain yourselves from impregnation, please speak with me and have your contract nullified so that you may properly and safely take care of your unborn child.”

Zitao nods, attempting to conceal the unbothered look that glazes over his own face, knowing very well he won’t have to worry about something like _that._

With a deep, collected breath, the president clears his throat and continues by saying, “Alright, I have a few last things to touch on before I pass the lecture over to some of my current employees. If it is not obvious and common sense to you, there is no tolerance for physical violence. I cannot force you all to get along and respect one another; this is not grade school. However, there is no excuse for causing or intending to cause physical harm to another employee. If it is on company property, it is grounds for nullification and expulsion. I would prefer you do not deal with it outside of work hours, as that may be considered dangerous to your performance quality, as I stated before, but please, deal with it outside of work hours. You are all adults, so please act like adults. And that brings me to our last topic, which is rooming. If you have registered or plan to register for room and board, you will be placed with an average of three roommates, bringing each room total to four. Although not in work hours, the same rules apply to rooming in the dormitories. Keep your hands to yourself, do not cause physical harm to one another, and do not engage in unsafe sexual practices. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Wu.”

“Thank you for listening,” the man bows his head in a curt nod, eyes trained on the small crowd. “I will now pass the lecture over to two of my current employees, women who are very well-brandished and have been with this company for a very long time, and whom I would trust to set a good example for all of you, Miss Jessica Jung and Miss Amber Liu.”

Zitao watches as those same two women that had trailed behind the president on their way in and had taken seats in the very front, stand from their positions and step up onto the stage, aided by the president’s sturdy grip on their hands. The more feminine, pink-cheeked lady lifts the layers of her skirts and exposes her dainty heels, while the other lady lays a spread hand atop her black hat, wide-rimmed and circular.

Their predecessor, Mr. Wu steps away from the podium and gestures with a hand to the empty space for the ladies to fill in, and as they do, he stands off to the side in exquisite posture with his hands behind the small of his back.

The long-haired woman is the one to step to the microphone and tap it with a curious, testing finger before she says, “Good morning, ladies.” As she speaks, the other lady shadows her, standing just beside her and raking her eyes over her viewers. “You can call me Jessica. I’m one of President Wu’s highest-revenue models here, which makes me like your upperclassman. We love getting fresh, beautiful new faces each season, so we hope you enjoy it here. Also, as you might know, you’ll all be placed into one of two departments here - Marketing and Photography, or Design and Recreation. Since you are all new employees, you will more than likely be placed in Design and Recreation, where you have to work your way up to getting promoted into Marketing and Photography - like yours truly.”

She smiles and gleams as she speaks, cheekbones glossy and eyes bright, and Zitao wonders if perhaps it’s an act, or if she is just that cloyingly sugar-sweet.

Then, the girl with the black hat steps forward, nudging Jessica gently out of the way to reach the microphone, “In simpler terms,” she says, the tone of her voice a few steps deeper, lower in pitch and warmer in hue, “it takes many years of training as well as certain characteristics you may learn while under this company in order to move up to Marketing and Photography. I’m Amber, by the way. Might as well introduce myself while I’m here.”

Zitao finds himself laughing along, his lips curling up into an instinctive smile.

“And because you’re probably curious what the difference is between departments,” Amber continues as she reaches up to swipe short, dark hair out of her eyes and back toward her ears, “Design and Recreation is a basic branch that introduces employees to the art of fashion design as well as fashion architecture, and in that department, you will learn the basics of productive modeling, including facial expressions and stances that help you learn to walk.”

“You may get to walk a few shows when you are in Design and Rec,” Jessica explains with a wave of her hand, “which Mr. Wu will have to approve of by picking each model that he deems worthy himself.”

Amber replies with, “In Marketing and Photography, you will be required to walk in shows as well as be dressed and photographed to sell Mr. Wu’s clothing. So, where the Design and Rec department helps produce and promote the clothing, the Marketing and Photography department will be photographed in said clothing.”

“We also have electronic bulletin boards that you may have seen in the foyer,” Jessica says with an archetypal grin. “On them are lists of each current employee, the west board being Design and Rec, and the east board being Marketing and Photography. When you come in each morning, that is where you will sign in for the day and throughout the day, you can check the boards to see if you have been requested in any other studios or rooms for additional work. Also, when photographers from other firms or more rarely, designers, come visit the company, once in a blue moon they may request a collaboration with you and those notifications can be found on the board, as well. There’s also a board just by the door over there, you can check it out on your way out today.”

“Thanks for reminding me about the studios, Jess,” Amber laughs, and the crowd laughs with her. “You will all also get assigned studios to report to every day at the beginning of each of your shifts, and in those studios, you’ll also have a coordinator you’ll be assigned to report to every day, as well. Your coordinators are your main helpers, basically. They’ll be the ones to do everything to you and put everything on you.”

The girls are silent for a few moments, seeming to chatter under their breath to each other away from the microphone, before Jessica leans forward and says, “I think that’s everything. We wish you success here at _KW Industries_ and we look forward to seeing you at the shows, ladies. I’ll pass the lecture back to Mr. Wu, now.”

She bows in respect and waves the president back over, who excuses them and thanks them for their efforts. Zitao claps in regards, blending into the sound of dozens of hands. 

“Alright, well,” the president shrugs and reaches onto the podium for a stack of papers - _manila folders_ , Zitao realizes - and sorts them with his hands. “We’ve reached the end of the lecture. These, are your company-issued documentation folders. In each of these folders will be a copy of your contracts, your company identification card which you are required to wear on a lanyard each day you come into work, and your schedule rosters. These schedules are individually personalized, containing each employee’s weekly shifts as well as each employee’s personal information, such as your name, age, and date of birth, as well as your current starting salary, your department, your assigned coordinator, and your assigned studio. If you have applied for room and board, the number of your dormitory room and floor number will be on your schedule, as well. Should you happen to lose your schedule, please speak with me and I will have another copy printed out. I will now begin calling each of you up to retrieve your company folders, and when you get your folder, you may be excused.”

Zitao lets out the compressed breath he’s been holding, chest shuddering from the weight of keeping it in, as the president steps down from the stage and onto level ground as he begins calling out names - alphabetically, thank  _fuck_ \- and Zitao doesn’t think he’s ever been so glad that his last name does not begin with the letter _a_.

As his new coworkers each stand from their seats to accept their folders, Zitao takes mental stock. He takes note of how they walk, of the amount of confidence in each step, and the expressions on their faces. He watches to see if they are just as nervous as he is, if they are more excited than he is, or if they are more confident than he is. Strangely enough, Zitao can sense the air of intimidation as some of the women step forward to retrieve their documents, briefly shaking hands with the president and his ever-stoic expressions, most completely undeterred with minds set on giving good performances and receiving praise, yet it warms his heart to know that some of them take deep breaths before approaching of such stature, before shaking hands with a man of such physicality.

He wonders if this so-called _confidence_ his mother is so adamant on him attaining in order to succeed in this job will come to him naturally, or if it is a skill he must obtain over time with lots of practice. He hopes it will not take long, for he’d like to be rewarded with as many raises in as short of time as physically possible, for the more money, the longer his mother gets to live.

“Huang Yingtao.”

His muscles go taut as he looks up, meeting the president’s eye from several feet away, and his stomach begins to drop as some of the girls’ heads begin to turn and look at him, eyes gluing onto him in expectation, and Zitao feels naked and on display.

Slowly, hands curled at his front, he rises from his seat and steps out from the pew. The hard stare on the president’s face does not waver one bit as he approaches him, heartbeat in his throat, and the sharp edge of the man’s gaze meets his own. Although naive, Zitao is not blind, and his pulse skips as a look of apprehensive wariness crosses the man’s gaze for just a split-second, and the uncharacteristic flash shocks him.

Swallowing the wonder down in his throat, he takes his folder and bows out of respect and tries to pretend he isn’t a little bit upset that he doesn’t get anything in return.

To mingle with the crowd, Zitao gathers his belongings and heads over to the board by the theater door, where some of the other women have already migrated and are hovering over it with pointed fingers. 

To no surprise, It is exactly like the boards in the foyer - in list form, each employee is listed with a picture of their employee photo next to their names, the same photo on his identification card, except this board is not divided by department. He assumes it is a board specifically for new employees, which would make sense, considering most if not all of the girls at the initiation should be new here just like him, right? 

He wedges a little space for himself beside a girl with long black hair tucked behind her ears. His name is seven down, organized alphabetically, beneath a lady with the last name _Hong_ on the left side of the board. _Huang Yingtao (23) M-F 9:00 AM-16:00 PM. Studio B, Coord: Song Qian. Marketing & Photography._

“No way,” the girl beside him hisses out in awe. “ _You’re_ in Marketing?”

Zitao struggles for words as the statement turns heads, lips flapping uselessly as eyes widen and gazes sharpen, and the air of jealousy and envy thickens rapidly. “I, um,” he stammers, drawing a complete blank. “I - ”

“What did you do to get put in Marketing?” Another girl asks him.

“That’s so unfair!” Another cries out, and Zitao raises his hands in an attempt to soothe her outburst with guilt. “I’m not even new, you know that? I was demoted to Design and Rec and was told to come to this initiation as a form of academic probation! How did _you_ just get my spot for no reason?”

As the crowd grows around him, unhappiness and hysteria glazed over each pair of eyes he meets, Zitao catches a glimpse of anger out of the corner of his vision; the lady who had led the lecture - _Jessica, was it?_ \- is staring at him in anger. No, perhaps not fully-saturated anger; from here, it looks like it might be a little bit diluted with some confusion, as well, but anger nonetheless. Has he done something wrong?

“I,” he tries to start again, hands winding nervously around his documents as he presses them into his chest, “I really don’t know, I - ”

“It takes years of dedication,” the girl with the long black hair says to him, eyes soft and slightly slanted, and Zitao’s nerves dull just a bit. “I was demoted from Marketing two years ago and I’ve had to attend several initiations in hopes of being re-scouted, but to no avail, so it’s not something that can just be handed out to you at the start - it’s like a manager position versus a cashier position, you know? It takes a lot of training and a lot of hard work. Surely you must have done _something_ to have been put in Marketing without even a second thought.”

“No,” he shakes his head in desperate confusion, voice cracking and eyes hot as though he may cry out of embarrassment. “I really haven’t done anything. I just applied two weeks ago.”

The girl replies with a pressed glance, flustered as though she herself does not possibly know, and Zitao sighs and bites his lip. “Do you maybe know the president outside of company grounds, or?”

He frowns, “No, I - I was a freelance photographer.”

“That wouldn’t do it,” she shakes her head as some of the girls begin to scatter and leave the theater, giving Zitao room to breathe. “I just can’t put my finger on what would have put you in Marketing. Even if there was an opened spot from someone being demoted, that still doesn’t mean that anybody can get in. I’ve been here… about five years this year, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the president just… _throw_ someone into Marketing right off the bat. Like, it takes some serious potential and ass-kissing to even have the president _think_ about giving you a promotion, and I mean straight nose to cheek.”

He sighs, “I don’t want to make anybody hate me. I just want to do a good job here. And no, I’ve never - had my nose in the president’s ass.”

She laughs, then, a soft tinkly sound as she lifts a hand over the space before her mouth. “I like you, stranger.” Very friendly, he notes to himself, as she extends a hand for him to take. “Kim Minseo.”

Politely, he shakes her hand and has to avoid showing his obvious acknowledgment that her hand is without a doubt _smaller_ than his, that she is without a doubt a _woman._ “Huang Yingtao,” he tells her in that same sugary voice of his, and she offers him a kind grin as she waves his attention away from the board and toward the door over her shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it, Yingtao, alright?” She says sweetly. “Hey, I’ve got the nine a.m. shift, so I should probably be heading over to where I’m needed. I guess I’ll see you around sometime?”

“O-okay,” he says with an awkwardly raised hand in a makeshift wave. “I’ll see you!” 

When the door shutters behind her, Zitao begins to feel the weighted silence sink down on him, as he realizes nearly every employee has left already save for the two that lead the initiation speech, and himself.

He wonders if there is something he should know about - if there’s some kind of secret being kept from him. First, the contracts that everybody else had to sign sans only him, and now this privilege of being put in a role that he apparently shouldn’t be in? Clearly, this can’t be a coincidence, he’s not stupid. There’s got to be something more to this that he just doesn’t know - there’s got to be something they aren’t telling him.

Clearing his throat, Zitao walks back down the aisle to where the president had been chatting away with his two current employees, and he stands idly for just a moment as they talk, unsure if he should interrupt or simply wait till the president notices his presence. He’s got a couple minutes - his shift doesn’t begin till nine, either, and it’s only about quarter to - 

“May I help you, Miss Huang?” 

Zitao blinks as he snaps out of his thoughts, and realizes the president is now staring at him, along with both sets of female eyes that feel very heavy and judgmental.

“Oh,” he stutters, eyes flicking between each gaze, unsure of which is the safest to land on. “I, um - I was just wondering why, um… why wasn’t I put in Design and Rec like… like everybody else?”

Zitao expects some kind of reaction, whether it be a flash of realization as though the president had made some kind of typo. Typos happen, and everyone makes them. Zitao would be understanding if it were just a slip of the finger.

What Zitao doesn’t expect is the little cock of the head that he gets, the flatness of the president’s gaze remaining unchanged, before he says, “There were open spots in the department from too many demotions. Do not get the idea that you are special, Miss Huang.”

He blinks in confusion. He hadn’t thought about it as if he were necessarily _special_ \- where is that kind of talk coming from? And besides, didn’t Minseo just say that open spots have no bearing on where employees are placed? Zitao doesn’t understand what is going on. “I apologize, Mr. Wu,” he says softly, bowing in apology. “I was merely confused.”

“You should be getting to your studio, Miss Huang,” he replies monotonously. “Your shift begins in five minutes, does it not?”

Zitao’s eyes widen as he glances over his shoulder at the massive clock above the door. Shit, he’s only got a few minutes to find out where the hell his studio is. “I’m so sorry, I will get going!”

He rushes out of the theater, leaving the unfriendly eyes behind him as he jogs down the opposite hall on the right to find out just where the hell Studio B might be. 

Something is strange, and he just can’t quite place his finger on it. However, he is in business for a job that pays extremely well, so he doesn’t mind having typos made about his position if he is still earning well. Whatever work they have for him, he will gladly do as long as he can continue to see his mother every weekend morning and wish her goodnight before he heads home each day for something a little more appetizing than unseasoned hospital food.

As long as he can earn paycheck after paycheck, Zitao doesn’t care what he has to do, for he knows it will all be worth it in the very end.

 

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“What the hell was _that_?” She hisses as she grabs the girl’s arm, swiftly yanking her back into place as though to physically reiterate that _I am speaking to you._ “Did you _see that_?”

“ _No_ ,” Amber gasps lengthily, shoulders sagging theatrically. “I _completely_ didn’t see what just happened! My eyes and my ears do work, you know.”

“You know what, fuck you. How can he just - do that?”

“Can you not worry about it? Jesus, there _are_ people in this world that can do your job just as well as you can. Besides, she seems sweet, okay? Leave her alone, don’t fuck with her.”

“Okay, but not immediately off the bat! Something is fishy.”

A smile. “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we might have a new Mochou in the building.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

The walk to Zitao’s assigned studio only further reminds him how out of place he actually is.

It’s in a nicely-built part of the building, the wing clean and floors glossy, each studio door wide and doubled with gunmetal handles and icy, frosted windows. If Zitao didn’t know any better, he’d say it was possible to actually smell the revenue that the employees in this wing bring in. 

As beautiful and as lavish as the place may be, however, Zitao struggles to feel welcome with the sheer amount of hard stares he gets from other passersby. 

He would have figured it should be no big deal to see new employees in the Marketing wing - employees can be promoted to it anyway, right? So then how come everybody is staring at him like he’d just cut his own head off?

It would make sense if it were just another secret that he has yet to be let in on - judging from the stare he’d gotten from that Jessica girl as well as the commotion he’d inadvertently caused in front of the board. Perhaps word of his employment could have somehow gotten around to the entire building within milliseconds, he doesn’t know. Whatever the case may be, he doesn’t enjoy sticking out like a sore thumb.

He does his best to ignore it, pressing his lips tightly together as his heels clack on the polished flooring, averting his eyes from passing glances to the plaques on the wall as they roll on by, and focuses on trying to find his assigned studio. Maybe after a few days of him showing up to work, the staring will cease and he will be able to live his life and do his job the way everybody else in this firm does theirs. After all, he’s here for work only, not to make friends nor enemies.

His studio is near the end of the wing on the left - _Studio B_ , the plaque reads beside the set of double-doors. He cements the sight in his mind for future use, knowing that this is to where he will have to report each and every morning. As he lays a hand on the heavy handle, he wonders how the president knows if people are actually doing the job they are assigned - does he have cameras installed everywhere like a control room, or does he walk around outside of his office to check up on people every so often? Zitao wonders what kind of job the president has up there by his lonesome.

He pulls open the set of doors with a mechanical _click_ before slinking into the space he’s made for his own body and allowing the door to swing back into place quietly.

The studio is dark, lights dimmed nearly all the way to where Zitao is certain he could lead a successful game of hide-and-seek. Off to the right is a photography set, the white backdrop draped from ceiling to floor as a model stands before it, pretty and posed like a plastic doll, as a photographer kneels before her and snaps pictures of her. The area is massive, probably to accommodate furniture in some sets or even multiple people at once without gaining sight of the background outside of the edges of the backdrop - Zitao would know. 

To his left is what looks like a backstage area, vanities lined against the walls littered with products and stacked with mirrors and unplugged lamps and lights, all surrounding several tall racks of clothing packaged in thick cellophane and hung on rods for use. It’s quite messy, a few pieces of used clothing strewn across the floor throughout the room as though tried on and discarded, but Zitao honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. To him, the messiness represents hard work and dedication.

He stands awkwardly in the entryway for a long moment, watching as various women crowd around the photographer and duck into the set briefly between shots to tidy up the model or to help her pose. Are those the coordinators? Is he supposed to go say hello and introduce himself?

No, that would be disturbing the shoot, and Zitao hates to disturb people.

He decides to step quietly over to an armchair separating the left and the right hemispheres of the room, soft and cushioned beneath him as he sinks into it, and decides he will watch how the photoshoots are conducted until they are finished.

He takes mental note of how professional they all look, how flatly and clearly the photographer speaks and how high the model’s chin is held, cheekbones prominent and neck slimmed. He can tell just by looking that she’s extremely experienced, and he wonders how he is supposed to fit in with women of this level of expertise. Maybe he is supposed to just grin and bear it, he being someone who has never before modeled _professionally._

The shoot concludes with the model lifting the ruching of her dress and stepping down from her stool to gaze at the shots on the screen of the photographer’s camera as he flicks through the gallery. The women - _coordinators_ , he is going to assume - begin to clean up the pieces from the set, such as putting away the stool as well as help rearrange the lights and standing softboxes.

Everything is done with a grace to it, like a finely-tuned machine. These are people who are deserving of their roles, people who have worked hard to reach their places and know how to do exactly what is required of them.

Amidst his thoughts, a lady approaches him with tied hair in a smooth bun at the back of her head, hands slightly patched with what Zitao would guess were bruises if he hadn’t known better, but after his very limited few escapades in preparation for this job, he realizes they are makeup marks. “Can I help you, honey?” She asks in a very fluid tone, thick and decadent like molasses. 

“Oh,” he stutters as he forces his lips into a twitchy smile and raises a hand. “I’m, um… new here.”

Her eyes widen then, big and brown and glassy. “Oh!” she coos with a professional grin. “Do you know who your coordinator is?”

He blinks, trying to remember back to what the board had said. Oh, wait - he’s got the same information on his paperwork in his very hands. Hastily, he flips open his booklet and rakes his eyes down the front cover. “Song Qian,” he answers, and her face lights up in knowledge.

“Ah, perfect,” she says with a little laugh, and something begins to pull the strings of his heart towards something that feels like happiness, something that feels like home. “Qian!” She shouts, glancing over her shoulder.

Zitao is confused for only a split-second, having thought that perhaps this lady was Qian judging by her reaction. He discovers himself wrong, however, when a lady over by the backdrop lifts her head, long, dark brown hair cascading down her shoulders with streaks of pastel running through it in every shade.

She makes her way over to them in a jog, hands full of backdrop clips as she says, “Yes?”

The lady glances at her, and then gestures to Zitao sat on the chair. “This young lady is your new client.”

The brown-haired woman’s eyes go wide and bright, then, and she wastes no time in extending a friendly hand for Zitao to take as her face spreads into an expression of pure delight, infections and jovial and symbolic of the love she has for her job as she says, “Hi, sweetie. What’s your name?”

“Huang Yingtao,” he replies as he shakes her hand, her grip firm yet delicate at the same time. 

“Welcome, Yingtao,” she grins and sets her backdrop clips down onto a table beside the chairs. “I’m Qian, but you can call me Victoria if you’d like. Whichever you prefer.”

He blinks. “That’s a pretty name.”

She nods with a smile plastered across her lips before settling her hands on her hips. “Did you know, you have the prettiest cupid’s bow and the sweetest smile?”

His eyes widen at the compliment, heart skipping a beat. It’s not very often he has his appearance complimented. “Oh,” he says. “Thank you, I - it’s all natural, I guess.”

Qian laughs, then. “Don’t worry, I understand it’s all very new. Take your time, shake your shoulders loose, get it all out. We’re a big family here.”

The sentiment makes him feel a little bit less awkward, her infectious giggles bringing similar smiles to his own face. “She is very cute, Qian,” the other lady says with a hand on her chin. “I’m Joohyun, by the way. Not that you will ever really need to know that.”

“Hi, Joohyun,” he says awkwardly, and both ladies laugh in response.

“You’re the cutest,” Qian tells him. “You’re like a little kitten. Anyway, Yingtao, want me to show you the ropes?”

What? “The ropes?”

“It’s an expression, sweetheart,” she laughs and coaxes him into standing up, several inches taller than she and Zitao wouldn’t be opposed to calling it near a foot of difference. “I mean, do you want me to show you how everything works around here?”

Oh. “Okay.”

Qian waves him over to the right area where the photographer is finishing cleaning up from the shoot, and with a wave of her arm, she explains, “This is where we photograph people if you couldn’t tell. We have about a dozen backdrops because our photographers focus more on filters and lighting than backdrops, and Mr. Wu is a fan of solid backdrops with intricately-colored filters. This is where you will do your shoots, so we’ll dress you up and get you ready and then you’ll have shots taken here.”

Zitao looks around at the space, at the rolls of solid-colored backdrops lined along the wall and the white one draped from hooks on the ceiling. The photographer’s equipment back is shoved off to the side by the backdrops, unzipped with lens caps having spilled forth onto the floor. “Does each studio have a setup like this?”

“Yep,” she chimes with a nod, gazing around the space. “Each studio in this department is pretty much exactly the same, just with different photographers and different coordinators. This studio has myself and Joohyun, and the studio next to us, Studio C, has two coordinators named Jihye and Liyin. Don’t worry, you normally won’t have to worry about going to other studios unless you’re requested there, which you probably know that you can check up on your request status at the bulletin boards in the foyer.”

He nods, “I know about them. So, say I finish my immediate work in this studio - what then?”

“Well,” she sighs as she looks back to him with a tired expression and wipes her hair out of her face, “the way things work in this department is you get two breaks, a thirty-minute lunch, and a thirty-minute snack. We’re in charge of giving and approving of the breaks under the president’s orders, so that’s why he may not have mentioned the break system to you.  You can take a break whenever you have no other work to do - so say one day you come in for your shift, Yingtao, and you have a shoot scheduled first thing when you get here. After the shoot, you are free to go check on your status on the board and if you haven’t been requested in any other studio, you are free to take a break, but you only get two a day. Otherwise, you just have to hang out in the studio until we need you.”

“Why would I be called to other studios, if I may ask?”

“Collaborations, usually,” she shrugs. “So let’s say the photographer in Studio G saw one of your prints and wants to work with you, they will request for a bulletin on the board for whenever a spot opens up in your schedule, you will be requested to come to Studio G. Does that make sense?”

He nods because it does make sense. This is almost like his homeroom, the place to where he has been designated, but he is not restricted from working in spots other than this one room. He actually quite likes the layout of that method - it’s a lot of exercise on the legs, but he can get bored sitting in one place for many hours at a time with nothing to do. 

“It’s the president’s method,” she says. “It’s his way of doing things. He finds it more time and cost efficient than moving the photographers themselves, especially if we get one of our _once in a blue moon_ visits from an out-of-company photographer or a designer, the president will designate them to one spot and bring the models to them.”

That’s… shockingly polite, Zitao realizes. To privilege someone of such a high standard to the point where they do not even have to go out of their way and to have the work come to them? Zitao didn’t think the president would have been someone with such a kind outlook on colleagues and acquaintances, considering how rude and cold he had been during their interview. 

“Do you come with us when we go to a different studio?” He asks, slightly nervous. He doesn’t have the easiest of times attaching himself to new people.

“Unfortunately, no,” she shrugs. “We are assigned to the studio first, models second. Even if you get called to a different studio for work, other models might get called to this studio for work, as well, and we would need to be here to help them with that work, you know?”

It _does_ make sense, no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it. “I understand,” he nods, lips pressed together, and the determined expression on his face makes her grin. 

“Don’t worry,” she says suddenly, as she reaches out and pats a soft palm against his shoulder. “You won’t be reassigned to a different coordinator unless I get demoted or fired. Even if you have to use a different one for a shoot, you’ll always come right back to me, Yingtao. Alright?”

The soft warmth of her voice winds its fingers around his heart and squeezes, and he can practically feel the maternal waves radiating off of her. He wonders briefly if she has children, for it’s hard for him to imagine a woman being so empathetic has she no familial ties. “Okay,” he smiles just a little bit, lips curling at the corners. Her happiness seems to be strangely infectious, as though it is the only way to be in a place like this.

“So,” she states after a small pause, wiping her hands together and Zitao notices equally dusty marks on her hands, as well, from swatching colors. “I think since you are a new addition to this department, Mr. Wu should be around soon to help oversee everything, and will probably introduce your first assignment, yeah?”

He takes her word for it and it helps to calm his nerves just a bit. Although inexperienced, Zitao doesn’t think it will be necessarily hard for him to get ahead and learn to perform at the level of that of everybody else here. 

He remains in his spot on the chair, watching as she leaves him be and returns to cleaning up the shoot, and after only a few moments, he hears the door click as it opens and watches as several other females file into the room, and he exhales a breath of trepidation, having forgotten that he couldn’t possibly have been the only model to share this studio.

The girls resonate an air of approachability, smiling as they chatter and wave their hands in bickering motions, yet it is all the same when they notice him in their space - their eyes change, their smiles dissipate and the corners of their mouths melt back into frowns, and Zitao feels out of place once more. He begins to wonder if perhaps they all know he is a boy - maybe that would give some explanation as to why everybody seems to treat him like a foreign entity. 

Is this what it is like to be an enigma? To exist in a plane of those all the same and to be the only difference in the air? It saddens him to feel so unwelcome when so accomplished. He is deserving of his hire the same way each of his coworkers is, so why is he being treated so differently?

He wants to ask Qian about it - maybe she will know something and will offer up some kind of an explanation, yet at the same time, albeit his senior, Qian is just another employee under the president’s wing. If this were a personal issue regarding only himself and the president, she would not be able to carry any knowledge of mind. 

Yet even having asked the president himself about it, Zitao had been given very little explanation and the knowledge that the president if not his coworkers as well may be keeping something from him disturbs him greatly.

However, it does not pity him too much when the girls bypass him entirely without greetings and make their way to the vanities. He is not hungry for friendships enough to whimper and willow when cast aside.

It is as though superficial - the girls here seem to be nice when required to be nice, such as when with friends or around figures of higher status who are more deserving of respect, yet morph into bitterness when around strangers. He never liked viewing people as lesser and treating them as such, because people are people, no matter what. Although he is new, he is still an employee and he is still deserving of the paychecks he will get.

Nevertheless, despite their rigid countenances, the girls are simply overloaded with compliments as the coordinators rush before them, gushing about each and every physical trait of theirs that could possibly be commented on, from their cheekbones to their eyelashes and their hair to their irises. Zitao wonders how much the coordinators could be paid to be this sickly-sweet.

As the girls thank them for the compliments, the coordinators begin to scatter as the girls rifle through the racks for wrapped articles of clothing, and Zitao wonders if perhaps they have a shoot to do that had been plastered on the bulletin board. 

Not having anybody to tend to at the very second, Qian returns to his side and shadows him as she stands before him. “You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?”

He blinks up at her as she asks her question, and feels slightly embarrassed to not be quite as outgoing and confident as the other women in his position. “Sorry,” he apologizes bashfully. He’s not all that worried about not having any friends here - he’s got Luhan waiting at home and his mother waiting in her cot, stark white and sheets crisp. He would much rather have friends that wholesomely appreciate him than friends that only accommodate him for the sake of convenience. 

“Don’t be sorry,” she grins. “Quiet is okay, too. I’m just used to the girls chatting with each other when they come in for shoots, but you are new so you probably don’t have any friends in this department yet, right?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“That’s okay,” she says in a bright tone. “I’ll be your friend.”

Is his coordinator allowed to be his friend? For some reason, it makes little sense to him. Qian is his superior, and the president specifically said that coordinators are not to be treated as friends. “Mr. Wu said I can’t do that,” he admits softly. “He said we are _absolutely not_ to make friends with the coordinators because you are staff first and friends never.”

She scoffs, then, her expression twisting in momentary antipathy. “Oh, the president is just an old stick in the mud. That’s his authoritarianism speaking, he wants to intimidate you. What happens in this studio, stays in this studio. If neither of us tells him, how is he going to know?”

Well, that is true. Perhaps it was a bit of a privacy stretch to assume that the president would be one to implant cameras specifically for eavesdropping on conversations. 

“Our little secret?” Zitao asks, a smirk trickling across his lips.

“Our little secret,” Qian confirms as she extends her hand and lifts her pinky for him to take, and he happily winds his own pinky around hers in the sealing of a secret.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

The president enters the studio as Zitao is organizing makeup brushes par Qian’s request, as she tidies up used wipes and knots off garbage bags by the bins next to the door. He’d gotten bored very quickly sitting there unmoving having to wait for the president’s unprecedented arrival. 

What he hadn’t expected, however, would be for the president’s stance to stiffen as he caught sight of him and for him to call out for him, which when unexpected, proves to be very startling for Zitao as he jumps and one of the brushes slips out of his palm. “Miss Huang.”

“Yes, Mr. Wu?” He asks, hands shaky under the pressure of a heavy stare. 

“Why are you cleaning up products?” The president asks in a stern voice, tone unmoving. “This is not the job that I hired you to complete.”

Disheartened, Zitao sets the brushes down into the round casing and sets it off to the side. “I um - I was just trying to help. I had nothing else to do.”

One of the president’s brows twitches, then, and Zitao notices out of his peripherals that the man’s hands have begun to clench. “You had nothing else to do? You couldn’t be patient for five minutes for me to come give you your first assignment?”

Mistake number one, he mentally calculates. He’s never before had to retract his kindness and willingness to help others in lieu of it making him seem impatient. He doesn’t think he’s ever met anybody before in his life that had punished another person for offering assistance. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wu,” he bows in apology, hands folded against the rough of his skirt. “I will be more patient next time.”

“I thought I made it very clear, Miss Huang,” he says as he steps closer, muscles in his jaw hard-set and eyes cold, and Zitao’s blood chills as their proximity quickly thins, “that this firm was not a hospital for you to volunteer at.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats with glossy eyes. “I won’t help anybody anymore. I’m sorry.”

Bitterly, the president turns his gaze away and folds his hands behind his back in an authoritarian posture, intimidating and broad. “Qian,” he calls out, and the woman glances up from where she had been re-hanging the strewn clothing and packing them back into their casings. “Please begin setting up for the initiation practice shoot.”

“Right away, sir,” Qian says before turning on her heel and carting over to the rack of backdrop rolls. Zitao watches as she pulls a muted gray roll down, thunking heavily on the ground as she heaves out a tired breath, and Zitao wonders just how heavy the rolls could possibly be - aren’t they made of fabric?

Mr. Wu leaves his side to walk over to the photographer confident strides, and Zitao awkwardly follows in his shadow, steps small. He watches as Qian unrolls the backdrop and unfolds a step stool to be able to hook the rings in the top of the backdrop to the hooks in the ceiling. In one swift yank, the backdrop unfurls messily along the floor and curtains elegantly in front of the lights. 

“Your first assignment is going to be what we call the Rain shoot,” Mr. Wu says beside him, and Zitao looks up in haste to find the president staring directly at him as he speaks. “It is a practice shoot for all new Marketing employees. It is to get you accustomed to being photographed professionally, as well as get you accustomed to learning how to pose properly under the guidance of your assigned coordinator.”

He glances back at the setup, all dull grey and lights slightly dimmed. Is it going to be sepia-toned, perhaps? Or maybe even black-and-white? 

However, inexperienced as he is with no previous knowledge of how to begin posing for professional photography, Zitao feels volatile that he will prove to be entirely untaught and hopeless. 

“It’s an easy shoot,” Qian tells him when she stops by, hands on her hips and a worn expression on her face. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn everything you need to know.” 

“Qian will prepare you for the shoot,” Mr. Wu continues to explain as he averts Zitao’s eye, looking over to the photographer as he adjusts his softboxes. “You will get used to how coordinators prepare their models and style them accordingly. As you grow accustomed to this routine, you can very well expect this sort of a routine on a day-to-day basis.”

Zitao nods in understanding, soaking up each piece of information as though porous, before Qian asks, “Are you going to stay?”

The question takes the president by surprise, eyes clearing as his eyebrows furrow in momentary shock. “Stay?”

She nods eccentrically, “To watch the shoot.”

The man frowns, however, and his lips curl up as he says, “Of course not. I have important work to attend to.”

Oh. Zitao isn’t sure why he half-expected the president to stick around and nitpick him all the while. 

“You can handle her, Qian,” the president states, and Zitao blinks at the mention of himself. Then, with a shifty side-glance that impertinently meets Zitao’s eye, he finishes with, “Hopefully she won’t give you too much trouble.”

His lips part with a soft sound, expression faltering. What is _that_ supposed to mean?

He doesn’t get time to ask questions before the president brushes past him with a cold glare in his eyes and malice in his breath, and Zitao shudders in the wake of it. Is this really how working for such a person is going to be? Zitao understands that well-mannered, polite employers are far and few between, but is it too much to ask for basic human respect? He is somebody with feelings, after all - does that not matter?

Hands on his shoulders make him jerk in surprise, heart thudding swiftly against his ribcage as he glances over his shoulder to see Qian holding him as though a child, a smile on her rouged lips and light in her eyes. “Don’t mind him,” she says coolly, words delicate and tone soft. “He’s always prickly, you’ll get used to it. Anyway, it’s time to get you ready. Come!”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Wait,” he says suddenly, lurching forward away from the touch of her fingertips along his follicles. “I - I wear extensions.”

She meets his eyes in the vanity mirror, neutral and unmoved before she gives him a little shrug and a gentle smile. “Okay. I’ll uninstall them and help style them for you, then, alright?”

It shocks him a little bit, then, as she reaches into the short locks of his hair and begins to unsnap the clips against his scalp. His throat begins to tighten in worry, as though there’s something he knows she should not see. “Is it really okay?” He asks. “I was worried about my hair being too short…”

“Yingtao,” she says along with a playful little giggle, and Zitao watches as she sets each track down on the vanity counter before him, “I have worked with tons of girls in my days. I’ve dealt with extensions before. In fact, I’ve dealt with a lot of things here. You might be surprised.”

A raised eyebrow. “Really? So, my hair isn’t… too short?”

“Not at all,” she shakes her head, setting down another track, and the scrape of her nails against his bare scalp helps to soothe the tremors beneath his skin. “Let’s see, I had a girl one time with underdeveloped alopecia. She had bald spots - she was in the beginning stages, you know? And she was so self-conscious, I felt so badly, bless her heart. So, often times, I’d tell her to come in with a hat on if it made her more comfortable and I would tease her hair for almost every shoot to give it the volume it was beginning to lack, and I’d comb over sections to cover the spots. I’ve dealt with much more than clip-in extensions, Yingtao, believe me.”

“Poor girl,” he coos, saddened. “That sounds so sad, to just lose your hair.”

“Well, she began wearing wigs before she quit,” Qian continues. “At that point, the spots had gotten large enough to where they were very much visible even after being styled, and the president was unhappy, she was unhappy, I was unhappy. So, she pulled me aside one day - it had been after a practice walk down in the black-box. She’d grabbed my arm when she came back in the studio, pulled me right over to this chair beside you, and picked up the shears we keep in the top left drawer and told me to shave it. I asked her what she meant, you know? Because sometimes people act rationally without thinking, and I just - I couldn’t imagine myself bald, let alone this poor girl. So, I actually had to phone the president and inform him, because any drastic appearance change that occurs in the firm, like plastic surgery or a noticeable haircut or color dye, has to be approved through the president since he is the one that oversees every shot from every shoot that we do. So, he got this… this troubled look on his face, and went over and asked the girl for herself, and with tears in her eyes, she told him she really wanted it all gone. She wanted to begin wearing wigs full-time and wanted to forget all about having big, blotchy patches of skin on her head. So, we did. We cut her hair off, and she cried and thanked us.”

“Did she continue working here?”

“For a little while,” Qian sighs. “I actually went out one day and purchased a lace-front wig for her with my own money - thing was _expensive_ , it was. Cost me nearly three hundred dollars, but anyway - I gifted it to her one day, I think it was her anniversary of working here, or it was her sibling’s birthday or something. Wrapped it up in a pretty little gift box. Unfortunately, it turns out that same day she happened to be handing in her letter of resignation to the president. I’d stopped her in front of the office doors and asked her what she’d been up there for, and she broke down and told me she’d gotten so self-conscious about being bald that she couldn’t bear to stand in front of a camera anymore.”

“Oh my God,” he gasps, eyes glossing over. “I’m - I can’t imagine how much that has to hurt.”

“I heard the president wasn’t delighted with the change either,” she adds, dropping the last of Zitao’s extensions onto the vanity before raking her nails through his hair with rough shakes in a massage, and Zitao’s eyes roll back blissfully, hair tickling the top of his collar. “He’d done a print with her in a magazine, and it had been the only shoot she’d done without hair. Her sales dropped drastically, and she received a lot of hate from it. People made fun of her gender, people made fun of her appearance, but there was nothing the president could do. There are always critics, unfortunately, but the president had to make a decision between the company and an employee. He’d actually been planning to demote her to Design & Rec, but she resigned before he got the chance.”

“I’m so sorry,” he sobs out with dry eyes, and she coos and pets over his hair in attempt to tend to his woes. “People can be so cruel, that poor girl.”

“She is happier now,” Qian smiles through the fog. “I kept in touch with her a little bit after she resigned. She’s married now and plans to have children. I think she works as a dairy farmer.”

Zitao watches her bypass the tracks of hair laid out on the vanity and begin touching the makeup all set aside on the wings. He supposes makeup will have to come first, then. “How many clients have you had before?”

She tosses a quick glance over her shoulder and says, “Like, in my entire career time? Mm, I’d say about a little over a hundred. Each year, I get an average of ten because each year there are usually demotions, promotions, expulsions - so the girls move around and ones I have one year I tend to not have again the next year. I do have some for a while, one of my clients was with me for three years, but it’s very hard to come by because the president moves people around so much.”

“They really get demoted that many times?”

“Well, not always,” she says. “Sometimes they just change studios.”

He is quiet as she prepares his face, swiping a wet wipe over the expanse of his skin and he suddenly feels increasingly anxious as the sight of him without anything on will come into focus. “Wait,” he stops her once more, and her hands jerk away from his face as though burned. “I, um… I’m really ugly without makeup.”

“That’s okay,” she shrugs, lips curled. “Do you really think half of us look that good without makeup, either? Please.”

The statement makes him smile, feeling just a little bit warmer inside than before. He gets turned away from the desk-top mirror so he can no longer see his reflection as she begins to apply fresh makeup to his skin, and he lets himself relax in the comfort of her increasingly familiar touch. Qian is very studious and yet very calm in the way that she works, hands steady and pressure light, gentle and fleeting as she takes advantage of the tools around her as well as her fingers, and Zitao wonders just how much training one must have had around makeup to earn a job as a makeup artist. “What is Marketing like?” He asks to break the silence, eyes closed as she taps something wet and slightly tacky onto his eyelids. “I mean, aside from the difference in dynamics between the departments. Like, is it harder, does it require longer hours, is it more tedious?”

“It’s a lot stricter,” he hears her voice among the darkness behind his eyelids. “In Design and Rec, the work that you do doesn’t really focus on your appearance. Rather, it focuses on how to prepare you to step into professional modeling as well as teaching you how to walk shows. In Marketing, the rules are a lot tighter because we are selling a product - our women - and we have to make sure they look a certain way to appeal to the president because this is his brand and he knows what he wants to sell and how.”

He frowns, eyebrows knotting. “Isn’t that objectifying women?”

“Well, yes,” she admits, and Zitao hears her setting something down, “but modeling and marketing products are very objective, to begin with. It’s all superficial, Yingtao, and often is retouched, as well. Modeling is almost never wholesome, and sometimes I wish it was, but this is what appeals to professionals.”

“Are societal views different than professional ones?”

He hears her smile rather than sees it, hears the airy little chuckle it brings as it flows. “Society loves embracing flaws. Professionals hate it. So, unfortunately, because we have to compete with professional brands in order to bring in revenue, we have to abide by strict regulations that objectify our girls. Like, each week? We have a mandatory weigh-in - maybe you’ve heard this already, but I’ll repeat it anyway. You get measured and weighed and we have to record each week’s data to adjust your diets so you stay within your required weight range, which I think should have been given to you by the president.”

“Yeah, he wrote them down for me somewhere,” he mumbles softly as she brushes something over his lips, quite literally with a small brush doused in something viscous. “In my personal pamphlet, I think.” 

“Because I feel like each of my clients deserves to know,” she says in a stale tone, one that chills him in a bizarre way. “The weight bracketing is always in the underweight range. Myself and some of the other coordinators have been trying to get the president to lift this regulation because it’s… well, it’s causing eating disorders in some of the girls and dysmorphia in the ones that recover.”

He raises a brow, “Dysmorphia? What’s that?”

“Oh,” she says as she reaches for a wipe to clean her hands, the soft rustling sound meeting Zitao’s awaiting ears, “it’s a condition that often comes with eating disorders where you see your body a different way than others see it. So, for example, more often than not the girls that develop it here struggle with seeing themselves as too big when we see them as perfectly fine, but you can’t convince a dysmorphic person with words because they see something entirely different. Unfortunately, the president won’t listen to us. Says it’s his business, and he’ll run it the way he wants.”

He scoffs a little bit as he feels something smoothing up the rounds of his cheeks, yet he can’t help but wonder why it is that the president chooses to act in such a manner, or why he seems to always be so repugnantly stubborn and apathetic toward all those around him. Shouldn’t it be the employer’s job to maintain each and every employee in wellness and good health as though it were their basic human right? “Forgive me if I am speaking out of employee lines, but why does he seem to always be so contumacious? As an employer, shouldn’t he think of the health of his employees first?”

Qian sighs, and Zitao feels her hands dive into his hair once more before he registers the familiar snapping of the extension clips against his scalp. “One would think so. The president is just… a strangely terse fellow. There is nothing he hates more than being told what to do, even being opposed to in such regard. The president wants to do what he wants to do, and we’re not allowed to say or do much about it without consequence. Why do you think there are so many demotions around here, Yingtao?”

“Does he not have a heart?” Zitao asks incredulously, facial features having constricted into a grimace to the point where Qian has to step forward and coax his ossified muscles into relaxation. 

“Truthfully,” she admits along a decrepit breath, trepidation lacing the thick of her words. “Sometimes, even I am unsure. I know he’s got to have one somewhere in there, but he’s just… very guarded, you know? Sometimes he seems bothered by his own existing, and he ends up taking it out on his own employees.”

He opens his eyes then, anguish seeping into the channels of his heart. He knows self-hate all too well, and to think of somebody of such wealth and caste stature feeling the same amount of self-hate as himself does sting. What happened, if it does occur to be something personal that he has shifted to take out on himself, to make him feel this way? “Did something happen to him?” He asks without preamble, merely thinking out loud as Qian’s perfume wafts into his nose, delicate and floral as she leans over him and fusses with his hair, the snapping of clips and the clicking of heated tools. 

From this angle, it makes it impossible to see Qian’s reaction, his back to her front as she hovers over him as though a ghost, foreboding and reticent, and Zitao gets the feeling that she does, in fact, know something, and yet - she is holding back. “I’m really not sure,” she decides to go with, yet Zitao can’t help but hear a disconnect between forced belief and facile truth in her voice. “He’s not the kind of person to tell others about things that bother him.”

Ah, so that’s how it is. Zitao wonders what kind of a personal issue it might be - the most probable being that the business had been family-owned, and it had ended up being passed down to Mr. Wu and had proven to be too overwhelming. Zitao sees that kind of thing all the time on television, in which the first born always ends up inheriting a wealthy family business whilst young, and more often than not, the first born becomes overwhelmed and oftentimes crumbles under the stress. He wonders if perhaps the president is currently in the stages of crumbling - yet, why does it seem as though it’s more, as though it’s something Zitao isn’t allowed to know? 

Or, perhaps he is far too new to know of a weaker side to his own boss. 

“There,” Qian says to him, and the world spins as Zitao is turned around to face his reflection in the mirror once more. “What do you think?”

It’s a look he’s not familiar with seeing on himself, hair straight and sleek as it falls down his shoulders like rainwater, glossy and even and he wonders what kind of witchcraft her fingers possess to hide the strands of his natural hair so well, seamlessly blended and silky from root to tip. His makeup is dark without appearing overwhelming, shadowed on his eyelids in a warm, dark, nutty color and fluffed a little bit outwards to give his eyes an upward shape, lids lined in black following the angle of the shadow. “Oh my God,” he says aloud in shock, and Qian merely laughs as she pats him on the shoulders and sets her used brushes down. 

“You’re not a girl of many words, are you, Yingtao?” She asks with a smile, and Zitao’s eyes brighten. “I’m glad you like it. Your outfit is hanging up on the rack, let me get it for you. Come.”

He follows her over to the racks and watches as she rifles around before lifting one of the plastic-packaged outfits from the bar and handing it to him on its hanger. “Here you go,” she says. “It should be your size because the president had it made over the weekend, but if it doesn’t fit, make sure to let me know, alright?”

He takes the hanger into his own hands and stares down at the cellophane as she walks away, utterly lost. Is he supposed to… just change right _here_? Out in the open where anybody could see him? Surely they don’t just change in the middle of a room like this. “Qian?” He calls out, stood awkwardly with the packaged outfit pressed to his front. 

Over her shoulder, Qian glances back at him. “Yes?”

Surely they must entertain insecurities of all kinds. “Do you, um,” he stammers nervously, sporadically avoiding her eye. “Do you have somewhere I can, um, change?”

She smiles, then, and waves her hand in visual explanation, “Oh, you can just change here. Don’t worry, we all have breasts, too.”

Well… all except for _him._

Having fallen silent for a long moment, it must be slightly out of character for him, as Qian narrows her gaze and steps closer to him as though worried, “Is everything okay, Yingtao?”

His gaze widens, bewitched. “Oh, um, I - ”

“Ah,” she says with a tilt of her head back in acknowledgment. “I get it. You’re on your period. Honestly, I don’t blame you for not wanting to change in front of other people when you’re on your period - ”

“ _No_ ,” he interrupts with a sigh. “I, um… I’m not… I’m not comfortable changing in front of other people. Sorry, I… I hope that is not too big of a burden...”

Her face falls slightly, then, lips parting and gaze softening. “Oh. I’m so sorry, here, we have a shoe closet that you can change in. Right here. You’re really not supposed to change in here, so don’t tell anyone I let you in here.”

She steps past him, then, and turns the knob to a door beside the leftmost vanity and opens it to reveal a dark, unlit closet. “There’s a light switch right inside on the wall. Don’t take too long, okay?”

He nods, and with a relieved sigh, steps into the closet.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wonders if Narnia exists - if the frosty winters are just as blistery as they appear on television, if the queen is just as vitriolic as she had always seemed when he’d been a young tot, for when he returns from changing, his own clothes in hand and an unsure scowl on his lips, he forces himself to recall just how long he had taken to change since Mr. Wu has now returned, has brought models along with him and is now talking to them in an orderly fashion, and Zitao averts his eyes. He knew it would come - that glare along the president’s vision as Zitao joins them once more, the one the president always wears around his employees as though they are making mistakes simply by breathing. 

Frightened, Zitao scurries over to Qian by the vanities. “I’m back,” he announces timidly, clenching his fingers in the tweed of his folded clothes. 

“Welcome back,” she replies with a grin. “Wow, you fill out a suit quite nicely. Not much hip, though, so I’ll have to remember to have your pants tapered to give you more of an illusion. Here, let me take those from you,” she offers as she takes his clothes from him and sets them aside on the armchair. “Alright, so, the photographer is getting everything set up and we will start the shoot in a little bit, okay?”

Zitao nods, the pressure of the president’s gaze on the back of his head calescent as it begins to bore holes. The suit hadn’t been anything close to how he’s seen men’s suits be, rather a semi-formal pantsuit with black slacks that thin at the knee and flare slightly at the foot, a matching blazer overtop a cream-colored blouse with crisp, vertical ruching down the front. It doesn’t come with much relief, however, because there’s an aching feeling in the back of his mind that this might be the safest and most conservative thing he will be forced to wear. 

It is only a long bleat of a few minutes before Qian waves him over to the studio section of the room and presents him with the finished set, a simple muted gray background with a folded parasol sat upon a stool, black and lacy and large. “Yingtao,” she says with a backward glance as she waves her hand to the photographer as they approach, “this is Mr. Park Chanyeol, our photographer.”

The photographer extends the hand currently not being used to hold his large camera, “Hello, Yingtao,” he says with a professional grin, eyes bright and smile wide and voice deep and warm. “You’re new, right?”

“Yes, sir,” he says, apprehensive. 

“Don’t be nervous,” Mr. Park tells him, stature tall and broad yet less than intimidating. “Do you know about the Rain shoot already?”

He nods, “It was explained to me before.”

“Good,” Mr. Park smiles, and with a sideways jerk of his hands, gestures with the heft of his camera. “This is one of the most basic routine shoots that we do since we only do a few routine shoots with each and every model. What I’m gonna have you do is sit on the stool and hold the parasol up and over your head, alright?”

He blinks. “That’s it?”

“Yup, that’s it. You can stand, you can sit, it’s up to you. Some girls like to sit, and others like to stand.”

Zitao decides to stand - still slightly unsure of sitting on hard surfaces with his _dick up his own ass_ \- and what makes him feel the calmest is Qian standing behind the photographer off to his side to where she is very much in plain sight, and having her mimic poses for him to copy. Albeit awkward, Zitao hopes he performs well under Qian’s guide. 

After a few snaps of the camera, Mr. Park lowers the device from his face before saying, “A little bit stiff, but that’s alright, you’ll warm up. Alright, let’s get some of you sitting now, and turn slightly to your left - little bit more - _that’s_ it, perfect. Then - yes, lift the parasol up and have the bar rest on your clavicle there - good, _perfect_.”

The flashes are quite blinding, as Zitao is not one to normally use flash, but it’s nothing he can’t grow accustomed to. Besides, the clicking of the camera shutter fills him with a confidence he’s unfamiliar with, the thought that he’s being stared at and poised as something that he’s not priving to be unexpectedly exciting.

Then - his gaze falters as the president approaches them, arms crossed over his chest and glare sharp, as he stands beside Qian and whispers something to her that Zitao can’t hear nor make out by the shapes the man’s lips make. 

“Miss Huang,” the president practically barks, and Zitao jumps as he’s called. “Why are you not paying attention to the photographer?”

Shit, had his staring at the man been that obvious? Zitao curses to himself as he forces himself to tear his gaze away from those dark eyes and focus once more on the camera lens.

Nevertheless, he finds it superlatively difficult each time the president tears his eyes from him out of his peripherals.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

The president says nothing to him as they wrap up the shoot - as Zitao sets the parasol aside and stands from the stool, trousers flouncing around his ankles. The instinctual urge to assist them in cleaning up the set arises again, but the sting of the president’s gaze upon him is preemptive and Zitao stands perfectly still, awaiting instructions. He has to remember not to move a muscle when the president is around, as the president had instructed him to do only what was asked of him and no more. 

Apologetic, Qian shoots him a piteous look.

Albeit insensitive and vulgar, Zitao does not consider the president impossible to obey. The way he views it, the president is merely someone who has standards which are expected to be followed and abided by, and Zitao can respect another person’s standards. After all, it is his company. 

“Miss Huang,” the president’s voice says among his inner monologue, and Zitao’s eyes go back into focus. 

Uncertain, he swallows within a parched throat. “Yes, Mr. Wu?” He asks, nervous now that the president has stepped into his ten-foot personal bubble and is growing steadily closer. 

The president’s hands lower from their resting spot behind his back, slackening by his sides, before he says, “Come with me.”

His eyes widen as the president’s hand grasps onto his wrist, skin calloused and warm and palm broad, and Zitao’s heart rabbits against his chest as he proposes the worst - he’s being fired, that’s it, for what other reason would the president physically remove him from his own studio? He’s fucked it up again somehow, he’s ruined _everything_. “Where are we going?” He stammers with puny words, tone poignant. 

Abrasively, the president tugs him a little bit harder as they wind down the hall to the elevators, and the president’s thumb presses onto the red button as he stalls answering Zitao’s question - no, at this point he’s downright _ignoring_ the question, breaths steady and chest high. He knows that he’s ignoring Zitao, and he’s very much aware that he’s acting rudely, and although suddenly inclined to stomp in the middle of the elevator in his heeled shoes and who knows, maybe even puncture the studded steel if he puts enough force behind it, Zitao has a feeling it would be incredibly unwise to act childishly right now, so with the president’s fingers wound tightly around his arm, he bites his tongue and waits for his unavoidable fate to arrive.

From this angle, however, one where the president’s eyes are forward rather than on him, Zitao can stare as freely as he pleases.

Really, it’s no brainer that the man is attractive, his cologne warm and masculine as it wafts around Zitao’s silhouette in this close of proximity. Zitao is suddenly overcome with the urge to reach out and bury his nose in the man’s neck - but no, that’s _entirely_ inappropriate for employee and boss, is he insane? 

The elevator dings a split-second before the doors open, yet the president already has gait in his step before the doors even finish opening, and Zitao is met with the familiar sight of the archaic frosted hallway with the large, silver-handled doors at the end. Of course, the president would be taking him to his own office, why would Zitao think any differently? If he’s going to get fired, that certainly seems like the place to have it happen. 

The president’s office is exactly the same as he remembers it to be from just days prior, every bit as expansive and cleanly-scented as he remembers, desk mostly tidy save for what looks like photographed prints of women unfurled and sprawled across the free space that the president’s computer does not encompass. 

It’s only in his office that the president lets go of him and walks over to his desk in smooth strides, and it’s only then that he answers his question with, “You are going to sign your contract.”

This time, Zitao falters visibly, taken aback. So he _was_ right - he was the _only one_ who hadn’t been contracted prior to starting work, and ironically is the _only one_ who was scheduled into Marketing. Something is very fishy, and Zitao doesn’t much care for it. “Why now?” He asks without thinking. “Something is weird here - why does it seem like I’m the only one things keep happening to?”

The president lays his hands flat on his desk as he meets Zitao’s eye. “What might you be referring to, Miss Huang?”

“Well, the contract for example,” he explains with a wave of his hand, jaw set. “I was the only one who wasn’t contracted during my second interview. Why?”

He expects a reaction - he expects unsureness, insecurity, shock, or any mixture of the three - yet the president shows not one, merely shrugging his shoulders as he raises a single eyebrow in an unimpressed glance. “I was unable to get to it on Friday because you took up too much of my time.”

He frowns; his interview had barely lasted thirty minutes, how could that be _too much_ of a person’s time? “Well - what about me being the only one to go into Marketing? Everybody is angry at me over it, like it’s something that shouldn’t have happened to me.”

“I told you before, Miss Huang,” the president stands straight, Zitao’s contract in hand, voice hard-pressed and structured. “I had an extra spot to fill. I specifically told you not to take any of these occurrences to heart or think of yourself as special.”

“But why would I authorize myself into a spot where I was considered special?” He stresses, and the president’s jaw goes rigid and tense. “I never once held myself on that high of a pedestal. Mr. Wu, I understand that perhaps there were vacancies available, but I would like to be treated with the same respect as my coworkers.”

“You are treated impartially,” the president tells him with rigidity in his tone. “You are treated as an employee because that is the role that you applied for in this company, is it not? Do not vilify nor discredit my methods before you have had a chance to intermingle with those around you and familiarize yourself with employee society.”

He sighs, “Then why are people saying that it’s entirely biased and improbable for me to be placed in Marketing? Why is everybody saying there’s no way there could be such an easily fillable vacancy?”

“I am not going to repeat myself, Miss Huang,” the president says, neck muscles cording in attempt of restraint. “The decisions that I make for this corporation are substantial to the company revenue as well as nonpartisan to employee knowledge. Simply put, it is none of your business.”

“It is my position, sir,” Zitao tries calmly, “therefore, I would like for it to be my business.”

Zitao knows that he is not the easiest to deal with - a forced maturation based off of the uncertainty of whether or not his mother would see tomorrow’s sunrise having led to obstinacy that more often than not is seen as a very unattractive trait to have. In wake, the president falls silent, gaze shifting away as if in debate, or perhaps resignation, before the man simply drops the stapled stack of papers onto the desk before Zitao with a loud _smack_ and meets his gaze as he says, “I gift leniency to those that are unaware that employee-employer confidentiality is a work practice that exists among those who often lack trustworthiness. In a career path such as this one, perhaps there may be secrets rotting away untold like fables from the seventeen-hundreds, but when such secrets have no bearing on the fluctuation of my company revenue, I am not inclined to tell you anything. So if then, after this explanation, you are still unhappy, I will happily demote you, but keep in mind, Miss Huang - demotions mean less money.”

His eyes go slightly wide as he looks up at the man in their shrunken height difference, mere millimeters apart in tallness as Zitao’s mind blurs at the words. No, it can’t be. Could Mr. Wu have specialized him… because of his financial situation? Could Mr. Wu really have favored him all because of his mother?

“Sir?” He asks, skepticism-laced. “What are you saying?”

Then, the president’s aura changes into something closer to self-aware, intelligent and a little bit peculiar, as though thoughtful. “The cards are in your favor, Miss Huang. When confronted with conflict, the human mind reacts idiosyncratically. We are altruistic creatures; we oftentimes hurt with the concern of others, and this is why, as a business owner, I do not bias based on an applicant’s happiness spectrum or day-to-day temperament. Contrary to what outsiders might think of chief executive officers and contrary to popular stereotypes that we are heartless individuals, I as a person do take into account each of my employee’s hindrances and filial backgrounds. So, Miss Huang, I would like to invite you to read over and sign your contract and waiver yourself over to my possession, but if perhaps there is something regarding this position that upsets you, I would suggest that you think over exactly what it is that is more important to a woman like yourself.”

His heart soars, swollen full and plumped with appreciation for his discovery. “Mr. Wu, do you not consider that to be biased?”

The president merely shrugs, a passive expression on his face. “What could be biased? I already told you, do not think of yourself as special.”

Although outright denial, Zitao cannot help but let a smile grace his lips as the reality of the situation sinks in. Perhaps the president has too much pride and has far too large of an ego to admit out loud that he truly thinks of people as people rather than objects, but Zitao can hear the softness of his heart beating through his aura and resonating in waves. When actions speak louder than words, Zitao does not need verbal confirmation, and lest he one day find the need for blackmail, Zitao is happy to keep this secret all to himself. “I’m sorry for the disturbance, Mr. Wu. Where do I sign?”

The president is calm, now, very well-composed and Zitao is impressed that he hadn’t been immediately thrown out the second he doubted the president’s causes. He guides Zitao through the ins and the outs of the contract, reiterating that Zitao will be advertised as a product and will be physically manipulated and controlled as an item and that he will be required to partner with the business for a minimum of two years unless expelled by the president himself. “Once you have pondered each stipulation to your content, please sign and date on the dotted line below.”

Zitao knows there are risks - he may become very sick from doing something like this, but this is all for his mother over himself. Confidently, he signs his name.

He hands the contract back over after returning the president’s pen to him, mannerly and polite, and the president takes the contract from him. “I will go down the hall to make a copy in the instance where your contract may be voided; I keep copies of all signed contracts for organizational purposes. You may return to your studio now. Please excuse me.”

The man bows with the booklet in his hand, attractive and elegant before he breezes past Zitao toward the frosty glass doors. Naive and lovelorn, Zitao lets out a shuddered breath as his pulse races. Arguing with someone that alluring and mature gets Zitao’s blood hot, and that’s absolutely a terrible thing to have happen to someone with a tucked-away cock. 

He stands from the seat he had pulled up when reading over the contract and takes the chair by the neck as he rolls it back over to the other side of the president’s desk. As he settles it back against the drawers, however, his eyes catch something out of his peripheral vision.

The print laid out on the president’s desk is deliberately rolled out, corners weighed down with paperweights, as though intending to frame it - or as though… covering something else up.

He knows he shouldn’t do this, knows he absolutely should not sift through others’ belongings, but he truly can’t help himself from being curious. 

Delicately, he slides the paperweights from the corners of the prints, careful not to tear or scratch, and lifts the top print away. Sure enough, there is a framed print beneath it as though intentionally concealed and hidden. Zitao wonders if perhaps it were a surprise, wonders if maybe the president were gifting it to somebody - if maybe that is why it is the only framed print on his desk. 

The print is very attractive, bright and vivid with a neutral pastel-lilac background in which the lady is centered, makeup colorful, hair multifaceted as it cuffs at her chin with sections of blues and purples among the natural black, outfit dazzling and flashy with sequins and black leather and bows. It’s a gorgeous print, in all honesty, the light so natural and yet exposed to a point where her eyes sparkle and her nose and cheekbones gleam, as the gloss on her lips shines as she smiles, wholesome and happy. Compared to the shoot he finished just minutes prior, this feels like a polar opposite, and Zitao finds himself in love. Whoever she is, she’s definitely not a newcomer like himself - he can tell by the roundness in her eyes and the angle of her face as well as the forwardness of her head’s position that she is very well-brandished, and he wonders if she, too, is in Marketing, and if she, too, is a senior he will learn from and look up to.

He traces entranced fingers over the glass of the frame, smooth and cold as the thick photograph parchment lays beneath, massive and lengthy as it hangs over the length of the president’s desk. At the bottom right corner, he catches a glimpse of a name in cursive handwriting: _Momo._

He wonders if it is the president’s handwriting, or if it would belong to the woman in the photo. He supposes this must be a company favorite if it contains the woman’s name for reference. With so many models, he would think it redundant to put their names on every single photograph they take, especially if most are not put in global prints. 

The click of the door handle makes him jolt, retracting his fingers from the frame as though injured, and he sloppily lays the curled print back down, not having even nearly enough time to unfurl it and weigh the corners down again before the president steps in with the copies of his contract in hand. As he casts his gaze on Zitao, stood awkwardly and indiscreetly over the prints on his desk, his expression deteriorates. “What are you doing?” The president asks in a rough tone, mood plummeting and tone darkening. 

“Uh - ” he stutters, looking every bit like the cat that caught the canary, “I, um - ”

Annoyed, the president strides forward and slams the stack of papers down with a loud _thwack_ , and Zitao nearly jumps out of his skin at the sharpness of the noise. “I thought I told you to return to your studio at once.”

Guilty, he steps away from the prints and sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as he bows, “Forgive me, I didn’t realize that much time had passed already.”

“You were not given permission to touch my property,” the president growls at him, eyebrows narrowed and gaze red-hot, and Zitao gulps. “Get out.”

Bowing once more, he does as he is told this time, hoisting open the heavy door and padding quickly down the hallway as it clicks shut behind him.

Letting out a forlorn sigh, the president gently draws his fingertips along the cool glass.

 


	7. Chapter 7

When Zitao returns, he makes haste in changing in the closet and hangs the outfit back on the hangers for Qian to dry-clean, before packing it back into its cellophane case and handing it to her. “Sorry about that,” he apologizes as he gives the outfit back. “I didn’t mean to leave before changing.”

“It’s not your fault,” she smiles and hangs the outfit back on the rack. “Is everything okay?”

Not knowing how to efficiently share his newfound information, the words die out on his tongue. _I have an instinct that the president has a bias towards me and put me in Marketing because it makes more money. My mother is dying and I cried about it in my first interview in front of his cabinet. I’m the only one who was contracted late due to some unforeseen circumstance that I still don’t really know about or understand._ Not knowing how exactly to fit all of his thoughts into one sentence, he settles with, “Everything is alright, now, he just had something to tell me about my pay rate.”

“Oh,” she comments absentmindedly, and Zitao watches her blow out a tired breath that lifts the strands of her bangs away from her forehead, shiny and sweaty from running around in a lukewarm studio. “Well, I’m glad you’re not being fired after just an hour, you know?”

He blinks. Has it already been an hour since he’s started working? “Why, what time is it?”

Lips pursed, Qian reaches for her cell phone in her back pocket and turns on the screen with a press of the home button. “Ten forty-two.”

His eyes widen as he soaks up the statement, realizing being made up and having the shoot done hadn’t been the mere ten minutes they had seemed but had taken over an hour to complete. Had time really gotten that away from him?

He supposes it can’t be all bad; when he had originally envisioned his shift schedule in his head, he had imagined that each shift would very nearly drag on and last all day, and only after he completed everything that was directly required of him would he realize it had only been an hour lost upon him. “Do you need anything else, Miss Qian?” He asks politely, fingertips lingering along the strap of his shoulder bag. He is not yet well-acquainted with the protocol for having nothing to do at the immediate moment in time - to say check the board feels too vague to Zitao, as someone who confuses easily.

“Not right now, sweetheart,” Qian tells him with a smile as the turns her back to him to rearrange the clothes hanging up on the rack, lifting some off and relocating them to another spot as though in a particular order, such as by size. “Why don’t you go to the foyer and see if there’s anything anybody needs you for? If not, you can come back and take an early lunch, if you’d like. We have an employee cafeteria on the third floor, straight ahead at the end of the hallway where the wings pan out.”

He blinks. “I can already take my break?”

“Of course,” Qian tells him with a blank expression, as though misunderstanding. “Remember, you only get two, so try to space them out, but lunch is the important break because all of our models need to eat.”

Oh, that’s right - his diet. “Should I eat anything specific?” He asks as he hoists his bag over his shoulder and gathers his portfolio and his cell phone. “Mr. Wu mentioned me being required to go on a diet, but he didn’t say what kind of diet or what foods I should limit myself to.”

Perplexed, Qian’s brows knot as she looks him over. “He didn’t assign you a regimen?”

In all honesty, Zitao isn’t sure he’s yet heard the word regimen leave the man’s mouth, but it would make sense for another domino to be added to the line of things everybody else gets to experience that Zitao does not. “No, but at this point, it’s not really shocking,” he sighs. “I seem to be missing a lot of things lately.”

Qian sighs, then, and tosses her hair behind her with a brisk rake through it. “Alright, well, the president isn’t normally this aloof, but according to company policy, you would be assigned a regimen through the nurse in our company infirmary that is tailored for each individual depending on your weight, your body mass index, your metabolism, your fat-to-muscle ratio, and other things. He didn’t mention any of that to you?”

He shakes his head, “No.”

“What is the matter with him,” Qian mumbles to herself as she presses her palm to her forehead in disbelief, and Zitao has to resist laughing a little. Is the president really this childish? “Alright, Yingtao. I’m not a nutritionist, but I’m going to say - because you are so muscular, you know, and you don’t really have much body fat - stick to water weighted foods and natural fats, so raw vegetables, and leafy greens, and also eggs and milk fats, so things like yogurt, cream cheese, hard or soft cheeses, and such. You should also have some kind of protein but keep in mind the eggs are also protein and you don’t need to build muscle, so have one protein per meal, whether it be meat or eggs, and stick to raw vegetables and organic fruits.”

“Thank you,” he smiles and bows in respect, and Qian gives him a quick pat on the shoulder, having to reach up since Zitao is that much taller than her, and she smiles in pride as though a mother teaching her child the ways of the world. “I’ll try to get a salad.”

“That’s a good girl,” she smiles. “And I’m serious about the diet, the president loves to find things to get angry at people for so if you eat anything unhealthy, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

He purses his lips, tightening his pull on his shoulder strap. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Do your best, Yingtao,” she smiles. “He’s a tough egg to crack. Don’t expect much in terms of manners from him, so just do the best you can to do your assignments and stay out of his way.”

“Duly noted,” he laughs. “Oh! When is your lunch, Miss Qian?”

“Yingtao, you can drop the Miss, you know,” Qian teases him. “And my lunch is usually at noon, why?”

 _Inappropriate work behavior_ flashes brightly in his mind, but Zitao has always been a fan of following his instincts, even if it gets himself in trouble for simply being a personable employee. “I was going to ask if we could have lunch together.”

Qian must not have expected such a request by the way her eyebrows raise and her lashes flare as her eyes widen, startled and off-balance. “Sorry,” he blurts out in a rush at the contextual twist in her expression. “If that’s not okay, don’t worry about it, I didn’t mean it in a weird way - ”

“Nobody has ever asked to share their lunch break with me,” she admits. “In fact, I think the girls are normally too intimidated by the president to try to have any kind of extraneous relationship with us.”

“I’m sorry,” he rushes. “I don’t want you to get in trouble, I just thought - I thought that would help us get to know each other better and would make working together less awkward.”

With a deep breath and a cross of her arms, Qian genuinely ponders this. “Yingtao,” she says flatly, the corners of her lips curling up into a shifty grin. “I’ve been here a long time, Yingtao. Never once in nearly six years of working as a makeup artist and coordination specialist have I ever had a girl disobey the president’s word and attempt to befriend one of the coordinators, let alone me. You really are something special, Yingtao, you know that?”

He flushes, shoulders drawing up. “Well, the president is just another person with another superiority complex, and if it’s really a big enough deal then he should talk to me personally or just fire me, not threaten me.”

She blows out a breath, astounded. “You really are unlike anybody I have ever met before, Yingtao. Sure, let’s go grab lunch. My treat.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“So where are you from, Yingtao?”

He digs his fork into his salad, making sure to get a bite with the breaded chicken, an olive, and a sliver of red onion, idiosyncratically crossing one smooth, tapered leg over the other with feminine grace, and as he wipes his mouth free of the dressing, his hair tinkles down his shoulders onto the edge of the table beneath his breast. “I grew up in Qingdao,” he tells her, saccharine. “I lived with my parents until about eighteen or so, and things just… ended up happening, and I had to begin to adjust to living alone.”

“Oh?” She perks up as she takes a sip from the straw stuck out of her takeout cup. “Do you own, or do you rent?”

“I rent. I’m struggling a lot right now with money, which is why I took this job,” he explains, and her gaze turns soft as she reaches for another bite of her sandwich with a piteous simper. “What about you?”

Qian’s eyes go wide, then, and she has to cover her mouth with her hand as she swallows her food before saying, “Me too. Which end of Qingdao?”

“East end,” he tells her, reaching for his napkin to wipe his mouth. “I lived there until I was around eighteen, then once I went to college, I started interning in different cities as a casework assistant. Now, I live about twenty minutes from campus on the outskirts of town.”

“I’m from the north end,” she smiles. “I’m surprised we don’t already know each other.”

He laughs nervously and rifles through his salad for another olive sliver. “I didn’t really talk to anybody in town, and I don’t really have many friends. Well, I have one friend, my best friend, but he’s from out of town and he transferred to my school district to live with his uncle in south end when his parents passed away.”

Taken aback, her expression falters and her sandwich wrapper crinkles noisily. “I’m so sorry for his loss,” she coos sullenly, her tone longing as Zitao waves it off, smiling, simply used to it.

“It’s alright,” he promises her because it is alright; it had been so long ago, having happened when Luhan was very young whereas he does not have any prevalent attached memories to siphon emotions from. “It was a long time ago, and he’s very happy with where his life is right now.”

“Is he a good friend to you, Yingtao?” She asks with a grin on her lips, and Zitao finds himself smiling back as he nods and confirms her queries. “That’s good. Everybody needs a friend.”

Qian, as he hadn’t previously discovered, is a woman of many friends - all of the coordinators on the same floor, to be exact. _And no, before you ask_ , she had told him when his mouth was full, _I am not friends with the president. The president is extremely finicky with his friendships, as he doesn’t have very many_. “What’s it like being a coordinator?” He asks her after a long beat of silence. “Like, is it tiring, is it annoying, do you enjoy it?”

She purses her lips, then, and sets down her sandwich. “It’s not too bad. Of course, being a makeup artist is a fun job, you get to style others and have your work photographed, but it’s really just the president that makes work less fun, sometimes. He can be very… unpredictable, to say the least. You’ve already seen how rude he can be. He’s been known to fire someone for simply talking back to him.”

That’s right - Qian had alluded to something earlier regarding the president’s mental health, but what had it meant? In the immediate context, Zitao had some confidence to conclude that something traumatic must have occurred within the president’s lifetime to have made him close in on himself this way, but what?

“I’m guessing you and the other coordinators are used to it by now,” Zitao states in a curved undertone, as though unsure if he’s getting his facts straight.

“More or less,” she sighs. “We’ve all learned the hard way that there’s nothing we can physically do to change him. Sorry, Yingtao, I wish we had a nicer boss, but Mr. Wu doesn’t like when people worry about him.”

This is where all of Zitao’s confusion lies - despite being self-centered and well-put-together, the president seems to not care when it comes to Zitao, as though he’s distracted, and Zitao doesn’t have a clue as to why that might be. “I just find it weird,” Zitao begins as he pokes around in his salad, suddenly bored with it, “how he’s proving to be weirdly forgetful when it comes to my work here. Like - like the contract, he never had me sign one and told me it was because he ran out of time during our second interview. And then there’s the being placed in Marketing when this is my first time ever working at this firm and everyone at initiation said I should be in Rec - ”

“Wait,” Qian stops him, expression hard and flat. “You’re _new_ new?”

Zitao falters - right, he never actually told Qian he wasn’t experienced. Numbed, her reaction doesn’t shock Zitao much at all, simply used to being treated like a leper at this point. “That’s exactly my problem, everybody looks at me as though I’m a criminal because I’m the only one with no previous training here, and of course I have no idea why that is. All I know is I applied for the job, and that I apparently wasn’t supposed to be put in Marketing, but I was.”

“That’s impossible,” Qian deadpans, and Zitao sighs.

“I tried to get the president to reverse it,” Zitao tells her. “I know it’s unfair, and I hate being biased over others who deserve it more, but the president told me he just had an open spot in Marketing and that’s why I’m here.”

She shakes her head, however, and says, “The president doesn’t do that kind of thing, Yingtao. I’m not saying you’re lying to me, but I’ve watched many women in Rec beg at his very feet to be moved up to Marketing, and the president is simply not that lenient. As long as I’ve known him, the president has never been someone to falter and make silly little mistakes, he is very calculated and is very aware of the decisions he makes. I’ve never seen him lose focus when it comes to his business, Yingtao.”

“How do you think I feel?” Zitao sighs. “All I wanted was a job, I didn’t want bias, I didn’t want ass-kissing, I didn't want special treatment. Of course, he offered to reverse the position for me and drop me down to Rec at my request, but I desperately need the money.”

Her eyes go a little bit wide as she asks, “Is everything okay?”

Friendship is a two-way street - he knows this, and although it is a tender subject he is not too fond of discussing with anybody whether companion or colleague, he feels as though Qian has somewhat of a right to know. “My mother is dying,” he tells her, and her composure breaks as her eyes turn glassy and her straw drops from her lips. “She’s got terminal cancer, and the insurance doesn’t cover it. I was working minimum wage before, but since the insurance doesn’t cover all of her chemotherapy, the minimum wage wasn’t even making a dent in the payments, you know? This was the highest-paying job I could possibly find, so I didn’t know if like - if the president put me into Marketing because of my financial issue, or what, but everybody seems extremely displeased with what’s happened.”

“That sounds nothing like him,” she stresses the muscles on her forehead with rhythmic presses of her fingers and lets out a humorless chuckle. “I mean, sure, I believe the president has a soft spot _somewhere_ in there, but he’s so icy and cold that you would never think he even bled red. I just… I don’t know, Yingtao. I’ve never seen him have pity on somebody before unless they were… Yingtao, are you… having sex with the president?”

He thanks every star in the sky that he hadn’t had anything in his mouth, for it would have shot out across the entire length of the table as he chokes and sputters and coughs, entirely taken aback by her statement. “No!” He grimaces, coughing helplessly. “I’ve never even _met_ the guy.”

“I’m just making sure,” she laughs, extending a hand over the gap where the table lay between them and allows him to arch downward so she can pat his upper back to clear his airway, motherly and comforting. “There are a few girls here in the department that have gotten sexually involved with him, and that’s how they manage to stay in Marketing even when they make mistakes that are normally against the president’s standards policy. I don’t judge,” she promises, laying a hand across her upper bosom, “I was just curious.”

Zitao makes a face, scowled and just slightly grossed-out. Zitao doesn’t judge, either, but he’s never been the schmoozing type. “That’s not really my kind of thing to do just for a job position,” he tells her, and she smiles at the response. “I mean, good for them for having that kind of bravery because who’s to say every boss in the world will be okay with that kind of illegality, you know?”

“Exactly,” she nods. “You’re very smart, Yingtao, you know that?”

A raised eyebrow, a friendly little grin. “Is that another one of your company-required-buttering-up-new-employees compliments or do you actually mean that?”

“Don’t make me tell the president on you, Missus,” she threatens, and the duo laughs as the joke tinkles around in the open air, lighthearted and warm. Truthfully, it’s none of Zitao’s business how the president manages his business - if he wants to cut corners and have sexual relationships with his employees, that’s none of his business, either, because if anybody is going to be prosecuted and arrested for it or at the very least publicly ridiculed for it, it’s not going to be him. “You know,” she tells him airily, voice small and sugary, “you’re really nice to hang out with, Yingtao. In the least suggestive way possible, you’re a really great friend to have.”

He blinks. He’s never had friends in plural form. “Well… thank you, I guess.”

“If you ever need to talk about anything, don’t hesitate to talk to me, okay?” Qian smiles, and Zitao has to avert his eyes from the sheer brightness of her expression as he nods in response. “I’ll deal with the repercussions from the president, don’t worry.”

Zitao knows he will prove to be a bother, whether Qian wants to believe it won’t be a problem because Zitao always has problems - between his mother’s medical state, to his panic attacks, to his insomnia, to his everlasting worry that someone is going to find out he’s a man in the middle of work surrounded by women and a very angry president. There are always going to be things he will never be able to tell her, and it makes him feel like a bad friend that he can’t be as honest with her as she is with him.

“By the way, Yingtao,” Qian says when he’s least expecting it, having submerged himself in his brittle subconscious, and he meets her eye as she speaks to him, curious what it may be about. “The president is having a practice for one of the Rec department walks. You being in Marketing, you obviously weren’t invited to actually walk in it, but since you have no experience with practicing walking like you would in Rec, would you like to go watch the walk?”

He stills. “Watch the walk?”

She nods, humming. “You know, get to see how the walks are conducted, how the models behave and perform, how the president treats everything and the organization of it and whatnot.”

“Am,” he swallows, timid, “am I allowed to go watch it?”

Qian shrugs, however, as she pushes her dish slightly away from her, confirming she is, in fact, satisfied and full. “Probably not, but I gave you permission, and under Mr. Wu, I’m technically in charge of you. Mr. Wu never lets the girls have any fun, believe me, and you deserve to have some fun. Make some friends, gain some experience.”

Zitao knows very well what may happen - knows very well that the president will more than likely throw a big bitch fit over Zitao not staying stationed where he was told to, but Zitao is human, after all, and he thinks he deserves to get to explore the ins and outs of his own workforce, if he does say so himself. “Are you sure?” He double-checks. “I might get in a lot of trouble for this.”

Warmly, Qian only smiles and crosses her hands over the table as she says, “In the six years I’ve worked here, I have never once seen a girl be as headstrong as you, Yingtao. In all honesty, I think this is what the president needs - he needs an eye-opener, and I think if he really does have some bias over you, which, I couldn’t imagine happening in a million years, then you might actually be the long-awaited catalyst and you might be able to finally knock some sense into him.”

Well, if there’s one thing Zitao is good at, other than ruining events with his crippling anxiety attacks, it’s saying and doing things that normal people wouldn’t have the guts to do. He’s always been this way - he doesn’t think of it as bitchy, but rather he doesn’t beat around the bush. And to stick it to his own boss knowing his boss more than likely won’t fire him because he’s got some kind of hold on him? Zitao is always game.

“Yeah,” he smiles, uncrossing his legs as he snaps the clasp on his wallet, “I’d love to go.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

The black-box is exactly the way Zitao remembers it being just hours earlier - still just as extravagant, still just as large, and still just as bustling with girls Zitao has never seen before.

Although this is a department walk, Zitao gets the idea that walks are selective - perhaps maybe less selective in the Rec department than maybe his own, but Zitao has a feeling that these thirty some-odd girls are not all that exist in this part of the firm and that they had been plucked from the bunch by Mr. Wu’s very own hands.

Gently grasping his upper arms, Qian guides him under her guise to one of the back rows as to not draw attention to himself, and Zitao gladly plops himself down in a seat, narcissistically draping his hair forward over his bosom and crossing one leg over the other. “You’re adorable,” Qian laughs at the way he’s positioned himself, and Zitao self-gloats with a smile. “I won’t be able to stay, though - I’ve got some other girls coming in for shoots in our studio. You understand, right?”

He blinks, smile attempting to dissipate. That’s right - Qian told him that sometimes girls from other studios come in to do shoots they’ve been requested for, and Zitao has to remember that Joohyun can’t do everything by herself in there. “It’s okay,” he tells her, forcing himself to accept that she can’t hover over him like a shadow. “When would you like me to come back?”

She ponders this for a moment, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently before she says, “How about this - you can watch as long as you like, and if your status on the bulletin board changes, I’ll send someone to come get you, alright?”

He nods, “Sounds good. Thank you, Miss Qian.”

A smile. “No problem, Yingtao. Enjoy.”

Her touch on his shoulder fades as she walks away, pushing herself past the double-doors before she disappears out of sight, and Zitao sighs as he crosses his arms over his chest and relaxes back into the cushioned seat. Although breaking a rule or two, Zitao finds this experience beneficial to himself and he soaks up the knowledge that it would be utterly foolish in the end for the president to get angry with him over it. If Zitao works to better his own performance and better integrate himself into this employment’s society, why should it be any trouble? Zitao finds it silly that the president acts as though he can dictate what people do and say, as though they are tarnishing his reputation even if it is something as trivial as grabbing lunch with a friend. Sighing, he turns his eyes to the walk.

The president is stood in front of the stage, back to him, his arms folded behind himself at the small of his back, resting comfortably at the curve of his lower spine. The girls are lined up before him on the stage, one right behind the other in a filed order, and Zitao watches as the president speaks to him, only managing to hear the overall din of his voice rather than the clarity of his words, and the girls begin to walk up toward him before turning on their heels and carting back toward the backstage. Zitao raises an eyebrow; it’s exactly like the way he had been instructed to walk in both interviews, straight-lined and calculated.

As he watches, he notices how the girls each know how to instill several feet between each other all with regards to equal amounts of personal space, and how the president never once takes his eyes off of them. Zitao doesn’t think it looks like too hard of a skill to pick up - it’s just walking.

And as the minutes pass him by, Zitao begins to feel slightly less and less out of place. This is where he belongs now - this is his lifestyle now. Putting on clothes tailored for his size and sewn from scratch by other people, being photographed in said clothes and having to adjust his body to the world’s liking - this is what he has to do now. He sighs, fluttering his eyes shut as he relaxes into his seat, unable to fully wrap his mind around all of it.

Truthfully, it feels nice to be able to sit down and simply breathe, as Zitao had been so tightly wound that he had felt all morning little more than sickly. It’s nerve-wracking keeping a secret that you know could very well mean the end of your world should it get out, and Zitao finds himself unable to keep thinking about all of the what ifs and whens.

There’s a touch on his shoulder, and he nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden feeling as he glances behind himself, half-expecting to see Qian standing there, and he is only half surprised when he notices it’s Minseo, sat in the seat behind him slightly angled higher than he along the inclined floor, her hand hovering over his space after she had tapped him. “Hey,” he whispers to her, gradually beginning to smile. “What are you doing up here? Shouldn’t you be down there?”

She follows along, keeping her voice just a step beneath a whisper as to, more than likely, not alert the president of their position, before she asks, “What are you doing here? You’re not in this department.”

Although nervous, Zitao attempts to appear impartial as he shrugs and tells her, “Miss Qian said I could come watch since I’m done with my work for now.”

“Does Mr. Wu know you’re in here?” Minseo asks him, and Zitao knows he’s probably pushing a few buttons by hanging back in the upper rows like this, and he also knows it’s only a matter of time before somebody notices them up here and the president grows angry. Smirking, Zitao shakes his head, and her eyes go wide. “Yingtao,” she gasps. “You can’t do that! The president is the one that gives all of the orders, you could get in trouble!”

“Let him get me in trouble,” Zitao whispers as he meets her eyes, large and round and glistening. “I didn’t do anything necessarily wrong. I finished my work, I’m not skipping, and I just finished my lunch break. Qian told me I’m far too new to have requests on the board so soon, so I had some time to kill before my next assignment in the afternoon.”

“Yingtao,” she sighs, shaking her head as her eyes flutter shut for a mere second. “You don’t know what kind of shitstorm you’re walking into with that kind of thinking. You’ll get fired.”

Zitao, after seeing everything from the past few hours here unfold before his very eyes, could beg to differ - if he really did spur bias upon the president, he wouldn’t fire him for something this trivial. At least, Zitao would hope he wouldn’t, considering the president hadn’t fired him for talking back to him in his office just a little while ago. “I can handle it,” he tells her, lips pressed together and a sheet of determination blanketed over his face. “When I have work come up or the walk finishes, I will return to my studio - whichever comes first.”

Minseo only sighs, however, and says, “You’re so lucky Mr. Wu doesn’t know about this because he would tear both you and Qian apart if he did.”

“So let him,” Zitao tells her. “I’m not scared of him. He’s just a tall person with tall words. Nothing more.”

As they sit and soak up the ambience between their whispering, Zitao can’t help but feel as though he’s got eyes on him, like he’s being watched - and when he turns his head back toward the front of the auditorium to find the culprit of his hunch, he notices that nearly every single member on the stage has trained their gazes on him - including one very fiery, unhappy one just above the president’s nose.

“Miss Kim,” the president calls out flatly, boisterous voice echoing into the vacant acoustic. “Who is that up there with you?”

Zitao stills, glancing off to his side as Minseo stands from the pew and steps into the open area of the aisle, as she fiddles with her thumbs and Zitao can practically _smell_ the fear radiating off of her. Is everybody in this firm that whipped that they’re afraid of even breathing incorrectly around the president? “Nobody, sir,” she settles with, voice trepidaciously fragile.

This must be an improper answer, Zitao realizes mentally, as the president’s arms cross over his chest and the girls behind him begin to quietly snicker. “That doesn’t look like nobody to me,” the president responds, and Zitao hears rather than sees Minseo actually _gulp_. “Who is up there?”

Zitao finds it laughable how calm and rigid the man’s voice is, as if he’s merely sat on an uninteresting phone conversation having to do with an unsatisfied student questioning their poor grade on their research paper about Murphy’s law, and yet it’s as though he’s holding a knife to each of their throats with every word he speaks. Is Zitao going to become one among the shadows and cower in fear as the president merely exists? He could laugh.

Forthrightly, he swiftly stands from his seat and allows his hands to dangle by his sides as he watches each model’s eyes widen, as he watches the president’s gaze sharpen and his eyebrows furrow until his gaze is slitted and paltry. “Miss Huang,” the president speaks out loud, practically growls in dissatisfaction, and Zitao - ever the chipper little pill - gives him a smile and bows.

He knows it must seem distasteful - someone who unafraid of the president’s aura and someone brave enough to smile in the face of it, and Zitao knows he will not have to move a muscle for the president begins walking toward him, long legs carrying him up the slightly inclined aisle as Zitao merely stands, exists, beams, waiting for this so-called tearing apart to pieces that he’s heard so much about to occur.

The president does not create any threshold of closeness, however, as he faces Zitao from several feet away and sets his jaw as he stares, as he frowns, as he broods away unhappily. “What are you doing in here, Miss Huang?” He asks, and Zitao can tell very clearly that he is trying to sound calmer than he is internally. What a shame. “This is not your department.”

“I finished my work for now,” he says casually as if pointing out that it may be raining. “I took my lunch, and Qian said I won’t have any more work for now and that I could come kill time and watch the shoot.”

The president cocks an eyebrow, then, raised sharply as his mood darkens. “ _Kill time_?” The president repeats. “Are you saying your work here is too boring for you, Miss Huang?”

A singular red light flashes in the very back of his subconscious as he registers that this is probably a trap - after all, the president is someone of much higher intelligence than he, and has probably done a lot of arguing in his time, but Zitao is not one to back down from what he thinks is right. “Not at all, sir,” he tells him in that same sugary voice of his, and watches as the president’s eyes darken. “I merely thought it would be a good learning experience considering I am the only one with _no prior practice_.” He mumbles the last part through taut lips and could smile when Minseo gasps beside him. “Don’t you think?”

“Miss Huang,” the president repeats along a rough tone, practically barked, and Zitao’s words die out like a doused flame. “I did not give you errant permission to roam the firm as you see fit - you were told to remain in your studio at all times, were you not?”

Zitao knows that’s not correct - he was told to stay in his studio when he had work to do, and to only go to other studios when there was work to do in those studios. Otherwise, Zitao doesn’t much remember anything having to do with being required to stay put even when idle. “You also told us to try to improve our performance as much as we can elsewhere,” Zitao tells him, and the president’s jaw tightens. “This is elsewhere.”

“Return to your studio, Miss Huang,” the president states between gritted teeth, and Zitao sighs to himself as he realizes the fight is now over - the president isn’t going to war with him in front of all these people, and Zitao should have expected such a professional move, honestly. “Now. Before I terminate you.”

Politely, he bows and meets the man’s eye. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wu. I will do better next time.”

Minseo’s fingers make one last attempt to grapple at his wrist as he turns on his heel, but it is nothing imprisoning to keep him in place as he does as he was told and pushes past the double-doors to return to his studio. He sighs to himself as he reaches the hall and begins to walk away, heels clicking on the polished flooring. Why hadn’t he put up more of a fight there? He hopes the president’s literate stature isn’t beginning to get to him.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao doesn’t think he will ever not find it pleasantly droll how relieving it is to take high heels off after a very long day at work.

Legs jellied and feet crisscrossed with strap indents and long-popped blisters, Zitao makes sure to put on two pairs of socks over several layers of first aid gauze as he bandages his feet before heading out to see his mother. If this is what he’s going to have to go through each and every day - then he just might have to have surgery to cauterize all of the nerve endings in the soles of his feet to be able to withstand this ache.

Besides, he isn’t exactly sure he’s ready to tell his mother exactly what it is that he does at work that would cause his feet to get banged up this way.

When he arrives, his mother is in her room this time and is sat on her bed, pillow inclined to allow her to sit up to eat, her glossy eyes trained on the television high on the wall. “Hi, mom,” he says as he walks in, a smile naturally beginning to curl at the lines on his lips. “Have you eaten?”

“I just finished,” his mother says with a gentle smile, and with a frail, shaky, sallow hand, she gently reaches out and pats the flat swath of the bed beside her legs for Zitao to sit on, but Zitao being tall as he is, never follows her orders and instead sits on the lounger beside her cot.

“I just got off of work,” he tells her as he sets his bag down. “Did you get my note?”

She nods, then, smiling at him. “I’m proud of you, Zitao. Do you enjoy it there? Is it nice?”

“It’s got its moments,” he tells her, deciding to be honest with her as much as he possibly can given the circumstances. “You know, shooting models often doesn’t feel like it takes much time at all but then by the time you look at a clock, you realize hours have passed. I’m so tired, ahh.”

His mother chuckles, warm and deep in her chest. “You’re such a child, my flower. Make sure to get a lot of rest tonight, you will need it.”

“You too, mother,” he smiles and reaches out to carefully brush his thumb across her wrinkled forearm. “You need a lot of rest, too.”

Comfortable and not very wordy tonight, Zitao resorts to resting his head along her upper bosom on the flat of her shoulder as he watches television with her - it’s a variety show, he realizes, something he’s not really ever been a fan of watching but knows his mother is notorious for being a fan of. She was never a big television watcher, but she did very much enjoy having a gander with her morning cup of tea and her breakfast before beginning her day. “I was speaking to Lanfen the other day,” his mother tells him softly, voice mellow. “That’s what I was doing up in the den when you tried to come.”

Lanfen; Zitao remembers his mother mentioning her the other day, as well, sometime last week. Although unsure of who exactly this Lanfen lady may be, Zitao is incredibly glad that his mother has somebody to talk to when he is not here. “How is she doing?” He asks out of genuine curiosity, trying to pique his own interest in her sole friendship.

“She struggles,” his mother says. “Thankfully, her Alzheimer’s isn’t as bad as it could be yet, since she does remember who I am when I go see her, but she would forget me in about a week’s time if I didn’t.”

Oh. “Is that why you’re up there so often?” He asks. “Doctor Kim told me you go up there sometimes several times a week.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I am usually speaking with Lanfen should I not be in this room. She is getting a little bit worse overall, and I heard from that one nurse with the blonde hair that it may be imminent kidney failure. I overheard from a conversation that Lanfen’s proteins are off and that her urine is much too dark, but you can’t ask Lanfen about it or she will have no idea what you mean. She forgets.”

Zitao sighs, wrapping his arms around his mother’s shoulders as he tucks his head comfortingly under her jaw. He sincerely hopes that Lanfen does not pass away - his mother only has one friend as it is, and it would absolutely kill Zitao to see her so helplessly lonely without her only friend. “I hope she gets better,” he coos, and his mother weakly nuzzles the top of his short hair. “That must be so lonely and painful, being sick but also having Alzheimer’s. Does she have any family that visits her?”

His mother ponders this for a second, lips pursed. “I believe she has a son,” she tells him after thinking about it. “Not sure how old or what he’s like, but Lanfen talks about her son a lot. She never mentions his name, though - she forgets names very quickly. She refers to him as _that guy that comes to visit her every night_ \- I think I’ve seen him when he was a real young tot, perhaps the same age you were when Lanfen used to babysit you.”

“Is he nice?” Zitao wonders. He would hope a woman as helplessly ill as Lanfen would have a child as equally selfless as Zitao is, without tooting his own horn too much.

“I’m not sure, my flower,” his mother sighs. “She does talk a lot about how wonderful and caring he is, but I have not met him personally since he grew up to be able to give you my first impression.”

Pursing his lips, he drops the topic. If anything, the guy probably is really great and sweet, and he hopes very deeply that they are just as caring and patient with taking care of Lanfen as Zitao is with his own mother, and he hopes they do not take anything for granted because today could be their last day.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Good morning,” he drawls sleepily, setting his coffee down onto the nearest vanity top and laying his back across the back of the seat.

“Good morning, Yingtao,” Qian chirps, chipper as ever, and Zitao sighs as he takes a lot swig of his coffee, trying his hardest to wake up. Smiling as Zitao swallows his mouthful, she says, “Tired, I see?”

Weakly, he grins in response and nods, having barely been awake enough to even put a little bit of makeup on. “I’m lucky I even have my face on,” he tells her with a crooked grin. “And my feet are fucking _killing_ me from work yesterday.”

Qian laughs, then, and steps over to pat him on the back as he takes another sip of his coffee before she says, “Make a mental note to buy some gel insoles, they’ll do wonders for you. Oh! Especially the spot gels - you can put them over where your toe knuckles go, they’re absolutely great. We use them at shows.”

Sighing as he sets his nearly-empty cup back down, awaiting the long-anticipated caffeine rush to come and wake him up and get him ready to take on his workday, Zitao makes a mental note ask Luhan later for help picking out gel insoles. “Any particular brands or does it not really matter?”

“There’s not much difference between brands, so I’d say whatever works for your foot shape. Oh, by the way, we’ve got another assignment for you, Yingtao,” Qian tells him, her back turned to him as she lifts a stack of papers and rifles through them in her fingers. “A dual shoot with… Younghee from Studio F. She should be here soon, are you ready to get changed or do you need a few more minutes to wake up?”

He knows if he sits down in the enticingly attractive cushioned couch he will probably fall asleep, so he remains standing on what feel like miniature stilts beneath his heels and braves the exhaustion, and waits for the caffeine to kick in. “I’m ready,” he tells her confidently. “Where’s my outfit?”

Qian reaches forward past him and plucks one of the hangers from the rack rod, something black and embellished in what Zitao can see through the plastic to be gold buttons or charms, and hands it to him. “Right here,” she says as her hair falls from her shoulders back behind her. “The closet is empty, by the way, in case you want to change in there again.”

He takes the garment into his own hands and smiles. “Thank you,” he tells her as he bows, glad that she did indeed think of him and holds no qualms about him changing in private. He’d been anxious as can be about it last night, overthinking during the darkest hours of the night over every single mistake he’d made during his shift yesterday from suspiciously changing alone to talking back to the president multiple times.

This outfit is more revealing than the suit he had worn yesterday - merely a cropped suit jacket in a soft black that ends at his ribcage with those same familiar embroidered letters upon the breast, matched with what appears to be a skirt with a zip up the back and golden buckles down the front that match the golden buttons upon the jacket. Although there is no mirror in the closet, Zitao feels naked. He braves it, however, and decides he’s going to have to learn to get used to it.

When he comes out with the empty case hung over his back and his used clothes folded in his hands, Qian’s eyebrows raise at the sight of him, as though impressed, and Zitao debates turning away and calling it off before she says, “You have _great_ thigh muscles, oh my goodness. Do you work out often, Yingtao?”

It’s a question he hadn’t really expected - come to think of it, Zitao isn’t sure he’s ever paid attention to his thighs before. That seems to be a thing women focus on a lot, and not so much men. Surprised and suddenly warmed internally from the compliment, Zitao blushes. “Not really,” he tells her. “I mean - I did some gymnastics and martial arts, but I don’t… train religiously, or anything.”

Qian blows out an impressed breath, as though swooning and Zitao finds himself smiling. “You have such gorgeous muscles, really, I’m jealous. And your abdomen, too - my _God_ , Yingtao, you’ve got to tell me how you got your abdomen so defined.”

Zitao had never been someone to calorie-count in order to lose weight - it just came with being so active, so he is definitely not a good example of someone to ask for advice on losing weight. “Just working out, I guess,” he tells her, shrugging passively, and Qian rolls her eyes at the poorly-informative answer before ushering him over to the vanity chair.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
  
_How many fucking prints did people actually order?_ Zitao feels as though his eyes may very well bug out of his head as he reads over his earnings, not even having given a full week’s time between his last check-in - he’s already made over eight-hundred dollars? How could that be physically possible?

On his tax papers, Zitao had been careful when filling them out, making sure to remind himself to read through everything to make sure he wasn’t misreading the information and wasn’t accidentally implementing incorrect information, either. He’d written down that he was now employed and was on an average salary of just under twenty-thousand a month before taxes, yet he’d qualified for most of the federal taxes because he was self-sufficient and living alone, so that being said, Zitao had to be very careful not to boast about it online and how much money he was suddenly earning. Yet, how would he suddenly have doubled his earnings after a mere two days at work?

He had an inkling deep down inside that it had something to do with the photographs he’d posted of himself as a woman - something he’s noticed the internet is quite fond of is pretty women, and Zitao doesn’t want to take up a space he is not welcome in by pretending to be a woman in order to gain attention, but if it happens without his intention, Zitao is not one to disoblige.

Sighing, he lays his hands flat across the table and scans over the number of digital prints he’d laid out, all different sizes stacked together individually across the expanse in their own respective groups, and his best friend helps him by sorting out the corresponding poster tubes to their respective sizes. “Look at you,” Luhan boasts as he looks over the mess atop Zitao’s table, black glasses pushed up high upon his nose bridge. “Soon you’ll be rolling in that dough.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Zitao shoots him a comical look. “Yeah, not after my mom’s bills, I won’t. I’m only rich in my dreams.”

That brings him back to his tax reports - he hadn’t put anything on the forms about owning a self-sufficient business, but should he have? Zitao isn’t sure, but he’s definitely more anxious when he thinks about the legal trouble he might get into for lying on his tax forms.

“So that’s,” Luhan says as he looks over the posters and down at the spreadsheet laid out with Zitao’s earnings in each individual size. “Thirteen eight-by-tens of me, two twenty-fours-by-thirty-sixes of me, four twenty-four-by-thirty-sixes of your landscapes, and requests for fifteen different sized postcards of you. I wouldn’t be selling those last ones if they go against your big scary boss’ company policy, but if you do sell them, you’d rake in approximately… one-thousand and thirty-five dollars.”

“Jesus,” he blows out a surprised breath. “Do people actually like my photography that much all of a sudden?”

His best friend shrugs, “I don’t think it’s the photography as much as it is the objects in the photography. I mean, let’s face it, we’re cute as fuck. I don’t normally put a price tag on this face, _but_ , I mean, I won’t object if others want to do it for me.”

“That’s because you’re narcissistic,” Zitao chuckles and shakes his head, and his friend threatens to swat at him with one of the longer tubes. “Hey, don’t break that, each one cost me sixty-seven cents. You owe me sixty-seven cents.”

“Sorry, whom?” Luhan laughs. “You earn sixty-seven cents just by walking in the door, over there.”

Zitao shakes his head as a smile plasters itself permanently across his lips, and he looks down at the prints. “I have to be careful not to sell any of me taken by photographers at work,” he sighs. “I could probably get in a lot of trouble if I do.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just take some for you,” Luhan promises him. “We’ve got a good camera, yeah? I’ll take some for you to sell if you decide you want to try that kind of thing. Don’t force yourself, though, you make good money at the firm. By the way, did you take your medicine today?”

Zitao nods absentmindedly, remembering that he did, in fact, take his pills this morning and that he had not felt safe going to work after having an attack last night, without taking them. “Was hard to get them down,” he admits as he slides a print over to his friend to begin tucking it into its corresponding tube. “But, I mean, I did have a good day after taking them. I felt more confident after taking them, which I guess is good. I did a shoot with another girl for the first time - I think it went well. I mean, I can only hope she didn’t think I was too manly of a woman to be working with.”

“Was she cute?” Luhan asks, and Zitao looks at him bizarrely. “What? Just because I’m into cocks, I can’t appreciate a beautiful woman?”

“She was alright, I guess,” Zitao laughs. “Shorter than me by kind of a lot. Pretty. Long black hair. Slanted eyes. She was cute, I guess.”

His best friend snickers quietly, knowing what that tone means. “Not your type if you were straight?” He asks, knowing Zitao like the back of his hand.

Unsurprisingly, Zitao scrunches up his nose and shakes his head as they make eye contact, “Not my type if I was straight. She was still nice, though, but my boss still had everything in the world to complain about when it came to me.”

“It’s because you’re mega cute and he can’t handle it,” Luhan tells him with a smirk as he passes a packaged tube to him. “Don’t sweat it, Tao. Maybe he just needs time to get used to you being there. Maybe he’s just always annoyed with you because he’s not used to your personality since you’re new.”

Zitao sighs, hoping that to be the case. Although mentally ill and although different from everybody else, Zitao doesn’t think of himself as necessarily mean, but he’s not sure what it is that makes him and the president butt heads so much. He knows he is not the softest person around, but is by no means the most aggressive, either, but the president just seems to dislike people as a mere whole.

“Anyway,” he sighs, belittling his own self in his mind as he gathers the packaged tubes in his arms and gestures to the door with a quick cock of his head. “Care to help me get these into the mail?”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

He sighs, laying damp, shriveled hands along the tin breadth of the basin, sighing as the water slowly flows down the drain where he’d pulled out the stopper, and takes stock. _Seventy-two forks, seventy-two spoons, seventy-two bread knives, fifteen meat knives, fifteen soup ladles, one hundred and fifteen plates followed by about fifty-two bowls, and one hundred reusable drinking cups_. It had taken him absolutely forever to wash all of the dishes, considering there are always dishes in rotation throughout the institution no matter at what time of day he runs the washers.

It’s very tiring work, and his back has begun to ache slaving over multiple washers and a basin large enough to bathe an adult in, but it’s money that he needs. From the hospital, he only makes about fifteen dollars from washing dishes, but that fifteen dollars could be enough to feed himself for two days after the rest of the money is sent towards his mother’s bills. The longer time goes on, the more disheartened Zitao is with taking money from his best friend that he could be earning himself. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure there’s even so much as a daily set amount of time that he has to himself between working and spending time with his mother. Sure, he’s allotted enough time within the hours of the universal set day to shower and eat and perhaps watch a few minutes of nighttime television, but Zitao realizes he doesn’t get to have any _free time._

“I’m done with the dishes,” he says as he unwraps the apron from his waist, loose ties astray, and lays it across the countertop. “Do you need anything else done, Jungmin?”

The nursing supervisor shakes his head with a quick glance around the cafeteria lobby, spotless and practically empty this late at night. “Nothing here, Zitao, but thank you. Oh - you could, if you would like, perhaps mop the ground floor. I know it would be time-consuming, but there was an upheaval this afternoon, and we did disinfect the spot, but that’s not to say nobody’s feet had trailed through it before it had been disinfected. You would get another hour’s pay.”

Although low on energy, Zitao never turns down an opportunity for money. “Sure,” he says with a slightly forced smile, rundown and tired. “What supplies do I need?”

Nurse Jungmin stands from his seat, then, dark curly hair atop rectangular black glasses and a broad stature within a lithe body, and he sets his hands on his hips and gestures vaguely in the direction of the hallways. “We have a utility closet in my office, you have permission to go in there to get what you need. There are buckets and mops as well as various cleaners in there, feel free to choose any of them that are universal and not glass-specified.”

“Okay,” he agrees and bows out of respect. “Thank you, sir. I will get right to it.”

“Take it easy when you are done, Zitao,” Jungmin tells him with a sympathetic smile, professional yet compassionate. “You’ve had a long night here. Make sure when you are done, you go home and get a long night’s rest, okay?”

“Alright,” Zitao smiles and heads out to get to work.

He doesn’t think of it as pushing himself too hard, although he does agree that after how tired he finds himself after working long hours suddenly, he should be getting much more sleep than he actually is. However, Zitao is unfortunately constantly overcome with the determination to do as much as he possibly can in hopes that he can convince himself that if something were to go wrong, it would not be his fault.

This late at night, the hospital’s waiting room has slowly treacled down into a mere several’s company, and Zitao feels sorry for the people having to wait to be seen by one of the nurses. Free healthcare is great, and all, but it takes absolutely forever to be assessed, and Zitao couldn’t imagine having someone in a dire situation with only mere minutes to live be ignored for hours.

However, despite there continuing to be stoical patrons in the seats, the staff are, at this point in time, peaceful and quiet, and Zitao finds solace in the silence as he douses the floor in cleaner and begins to slide the mop about the slick.

People always seem to be impressed by his work ethic when they see him, and they tend to butter him up and kiss his ass and it truthfully gets somewhat annoying. _You’re one of the most hardworking people I have ever seen!_ Zitao always scoffs when he thanks them, because he knows very well that anybody in their right mind would be doing exactly the same thing were it their mother.

It’s very stress-relieving to be able to soak up a jovial silence this way after a long day of being bossed around by the president and being posed about like a doll. Nevertheless, Zitao does enjoy the accompanying companionship of people like Qian and Minseo - it absolutely melts his tension away to know that people do not hate him at first glance.

He sighs, wiping his forehead tiredly, and dips the mop in the bucket of water as he stands back up, rolling his tensed shoulders. Wait - what was that?

He blinks several times, unsure if he had hallucinated that in the cloud of his exhaustion or if it had been merely a figment of his imagination. His heartbeat quickens, thumping loudly against his ribcage. There’s no way that could have been who he thinks it is, there’s _no way._

Had Mr. Wu just rounded that corner and headed into the west wing?

Zitao forces himself to forget about it, assuming he was merely seeing things when yes, of course, it is a public hospital and it would make very logical sense to see other people in this hospital, but he can’t afford to have the president see him like this - not in these black jeans and these dirty sneakers and his air-dried short hair at its fluffiest point.

Trembling in worry, Zitao lets out a shuddered breath as he sets the mop placidly into the bucket. Maybe he really does need a long night’s rest.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Yingtao!”

He glances up from where he had been clocking in for the day to see Minseo jogging over to him in her tiny denim skirt and her pastel pink blouse, just as fair as always with her long hair and her big eyes. She is a genuinely beautiful girl, and Zitao smiles at the sight of her so attractive with such little makeup on, such a natural beauty that Zitao finds impressive. “Good morning, Minseo,” he acknowledges her. “Do you need something?”

Out of breath, she is, as she stills beside him and adjusts her grip on her company folder in her hands as she catches her breath. “Yes, it’s - it’s not on the board yet, but Mr. Wu wanted me to come find you. He wants you to come to the black-box, we’re having a dual-department practice walk for select models.”

His eyes widen; select? Does that mean the president hand-picked him out of the bunch? “Right now?” He asks aloud. “Or in a while’s time?”

“Right now,” Minseo pants out and gestures back behind her in the direction of the elevators and the black-box stairwell. “It’s just a practice, but he asked the lot if anybody knows where to find you since it was a last-minute gathering and he didn’t have time to inform the staff and update the system. So I - I volunteered and ran up here to come get you. Wasn’t sure if you would be in your studio or if you would be in the lobby.”

His eyes widen slightly, surprised that he would even be invited to such a thing. “Are you attending it, as well?” He asks, and Minseo is quick to nod with a joyous expression on her face.

“Mr. Wu doesn’t want us to keep him waiting, though,” Minseo tells him. “Let’s get going, yeah?”

Curious and just a little bit piqued of interest, Zitao lets her drag him down the stairs and around the hallway corner to the familiar double-doors of the black-box theater. After his outbursts with the president the other day, Zitao didn’t think he would ever be placed in walks as a member of the firm - he’d unjustly assumed thanks to his own panic that he would simply be ignored and would only be photographed, and that would be the president’s way of punishing him without actually terminating his contract because there still exists that bias that has to do with Zitao’s mother. Nevertheless, Zitao breathes a calmed sigh as he steps into the black-box and rightfully feels welcomed.

When they reach the flat past the inclined floor, Minseo lets go of his wrist and allows him to readjust his shoulder bag, before the president turns to them and registers Zitao being there, his pupils focusing. “Good morning, Miss Huang,” the president says in that familiar deep, flat, professional tone, and Zitao instinctively bows in respect. “Thank you for joining us quickly, Miss Kim has always been a punctual employee and I trusted her to successfully retrieve you.”

He tucks his bottom lip into his mouth, suddenly feeling eyes on him, before he says, “Thank you for allowing me to partake in this, Mr. Wu. I will work hard.”

An eyebrow is raised at the statement, the man’s hands idiosyncratically curling back behind himself to rest on his lower spine once more. “I would assume you would work very hard, Miss Huang, considering you have been nothing but antsy the majority of this week to do new assignments that have not yet been created.”

He flushes, “I’m sorry, Mr. Wu.”

Briskly, the man shifts his focus away from the apology as he takes in a deep breath, chest raising, and faces the lot of girls that surround them. “Good morning, ladies. I apologize for scheduling this so early in the morning, many of you have just arrived for the day, but we have a small show coming up in Shanghai in about two weeks’ time that I would like for all of you to attend. I understand this involves both departments, but I have picked the most capable women from each department that I saw fit for this walk. Should you be uncomfortable with this in any way, please speak with me privately through my cabinet.”

Although listening intently, Zitao can’t help but feel pride bloom deep within his chest - had the president really picked him for something like this? He, someone who stumbles and speaks out of turn and struggles with debilitating mental illnesses - to have been given a chance like this means the absolute world to Zitao because it means he is doing a decent job.

Actual walking for a show is a lot like what he has already experienced alone, and yet is something entirely different both in the sense that it is a new atmosphere and therefore a new experience, and that he can feel the heavy weight of eyes on him beginning to grow uncomfortably distracting. Are their gazes from envy or malice? Zitao sincerely hopes not.

Remaining passive and convincing himself that he is just as worthy of this work as every other girl stood on this stage, he follows the person in front of him and walks as he had been directed. Of course, being himself, he teeters just slightly and can’t find it in himself to help the tears that struggle to spring to the surface at the memory of the president making fun of him at his first interview when he had stumbled, but he grins and bears it and completes his turn.

“A little sloppy, Miss Huang,” the president calls out as Zitao rounds the turn, and he falters along the turn at the mention of his name. It’s shameful how much snickering he hears around him at the stupid little mistakes he makes, because doesn’t everybody make mistakes? Sighing, he turns his gaze forward once more and walks back up toward the front to come to stand behind the girl in front of him.

He simply hadn’t had the time to practice walking because he simply doesn’t have time whatsoever. Knowing the president’s abrasive personality, however, Zitao thoroughly doubts his own ability to be able to siphon any kind of sympathy from him over his lack of time to practice walking.

“Mr. Wu,” one of the girls raises her hand as the practice walk completes, and Zitao hadn’t realized he’d zoned out until he’s jerking himself awake from his own thoughts and realizing he hadn’t been paying attention to anything at all. He hopes nobody had said anything important. “You said during the initiation that if anybody makes any kind of mistake, they would be punished, right?”

Zitao furrows his eyebrows, not understanding what the girl is getting at. She is unfamiliar to him, however, so it must not be something relating to him.

“I did indeed say that Miss Jeon,” the president says with an equally cold, placified expression. “Why?”

The girl’s hand lowers, then, before she glances back over her shoulder, makes _strangely directive_ eye contact with someone that must not be Zitao but he is worried it might be Zitao, and says, “Then - shouldn’t Yingtao be punished for messing up on the turn? That is what you said.”

His expression falters, heart dropping. Why would someone say something like that just to get him in trouble? Are girls always this petty?

“Miss Jeon,” the president says, taking in a deep breath as he crosses his arms, and Zitao’s blood runs cold. Does this mean he’s about to lose his job all because he stumbled just a little bit? “While I did make it clear that I hold little to no tolerance for repetitive mistakes, I am also very much aware that I made it clear that I also do not hold tolerance for name-calling and harassment, did I not?”

He blinks; what?

“That wasn’t name-calling, though,” the girl responds, and the lady behind him lets out a soft gasp at the rebuttal. “I was just saying - ”

“I understand what it is that you were saying, Miss Jeon,” the president refutes, voice rough and loud and suddenly thunderous in a way that it makes Zitao’s heart jump in fright. “And I made it very clear that you were all to play nice and that work was not a place for tension between employees. Another word out of your mouth about somebody that is not yourself and I will terminate your contract, Miss Jeon. Miss Huang is very deserving of her spot and people make mistakes - do you not also make mistakes, Miss Jeon? I seem to recall that you are, by no means, perfect, either, when you stumbled at the Hunan show two winters ago, did you not?”

This can’t actually be happening - is Zitao actually being supported by this guy? He finds himself breathless and unable to find the words to say.

“Mr. Wu,” the girl cries out softly, thickly, and Zitao can tell from the constricting tone of her voice that she must be teary. “Please don’t say that.”

“Then do not criticize my employees and do not act as though you know more than me,” the president barks and Zitao’s eyes go glossy and wide. “If you are not willing to oblige by company rules and play nice, then I am not willing to oblige to send you to the Shanghai show, or anywhere, for that matter. And Miss Huang,” he says, meeting Zitao’s eye from the line of girls, and Zitao finds his breath stolen from within his chest. “You need to practice your turns - your toes are not pointed downward and this is what is causing you to stumble. You are to improve before the show, or I will be forced to exclude you from walking. Do I make myself clear?”

Determined to improve, Zitao nods, a natural smile stretched across his pink lips. “Yes, Mr. Wu. I’m very sorry.”

“Practice makes perfect, Miss Huang,” Mr. Wu tells him with a sharp glare. “Do not let this company down.”

He nods, excited and teary-eyed, and internally blessed that he was given a second chance.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

God, adjusting your dick-tie underwear mechanism is _really fucking annoying_ after having a piss. Being male, though, Zitao knows he wouldn’t be able to hold it.

The second chance given to him at the practice walk had spoken volumes to him, to know that he is thought of as a human who messes up from time to time rather than an unmovable, rigid doll who is expected to be absolutely flawless. It’s soothing to know that the president has somewhat of a soft side deep down inside of him. Zitao finds himself intrigued, hoping to see more of it.

He’s just finishing paper towel-drying his hands as he heads out of the restroom when his phone vibrates in his bag, and he sighs as he fishes around for it. Why do women’s pocketbooks always seem like endless enigmas?

Pulling his phone out, he tosses his hair over his shoulder as he holds it up to his ear. “Hey, Han, what do you need?”

His best friend sighs into the receiver on the other end before saying, “ _Tao, I - I’ve got some bad fuckin’ news, they - fuckin’ hell._ ”

Anxious and unprepared, Zitao’s heart drops. “What - what kind of bad news?”

A sigh. “ _Those fucking stupid pieces of shit in financials called me about your employment and your tax papers, and I told them you got basically all of the federal taxes because you are legally self-sufficient. And they - I can’t believe this, they fucking dropped me from the account as the primary source of payment for the treatments_.”

“What does that mean?” He blurts out, hands shaking as his breath begins to thin and his throat begins to close. “Is mom okay? What’s going on?”

“ _She’s fine, Tao, I just - they’re stopping her treatments now because there isn’t enough money to afford the treatments, and they said it’s all because of your taxes. You aren’t making enough to pay for the treatments and now that you’re working, I’m not allowed to help pitch in. Meaning, if I don’t figure out something soon, this is going to kill your mother._ ”  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

“How can they do that?” He trembles as tears flood his waterlines, his pulse quickening as this throat attempts to constrict and close. He can’t have an attack, not here, not right now, and especially not taking his medication for the attacks, he _can’t._ “If there’s a deficit, aren’t they supposed to fill in the gap elsewhere? I don’t - I don’t even know when my paycheck will come in, Han, I can’t - ”

His best friend sighs exasperatedly on the other line, his harsh breath static against the receiver. “ _I don’t know, Tao, I’m really sorry. They told me it’s because I’m not a relative of yours, therefore, now that you have your own income and tax, I’m not considered a reputable source of payment, apparently. It’s such bullshit, but don’t worry, I’m on my way there right now to give them a piece of my mind._ ”

He sniffles, letting out a choked cry, as he wraps his hand around his throat and struggles to breathe. “Will everything be okay?” He asks in a small voice, breaths tight. “What if they don’t let you help provide? I can’t lose her like this, Han, I can’t - not like this, I’m not ready, I - ”

“ _I know, Tao_ ,” his best friend says, and Zitao can make out the blaring noise of a car horn in the muddy reception on the other line - Luhan must actually be in his car right now, and Zitao doesn’t want to even imagine how much he’s probably running the speed limit. “ _I’m trying, okay? I’ll keep you posted, don’t worry. I’ll figure this shit out, this can’t be legal to do, regardless of if I’m related to you or not._ ”

“Did they give you any stipulations to abide by?” Zitao blurts out. “Any, like - qualms to obey, or any requirements for being considered a qualifying source of payment? Is there anything I can do to make that happen?”

“ _I couldn’t get them to go into detail on the phone, but this can’t possibly be that vague. That’s why I’m on my way to the hospital, okay? I’ll try to fix this, Tao, don’t worry. Anyway, I gotta go, I’m turning off of the parkway, alright? Love you_.”

Zitao doesn’t get any time to respond before the receiver clicks and the call is dropped, and he lowers his cell phone from his ear as he stares down at the call list, a tear flitting down his cheek. Why is it that everything that could possibly go wrong in somebody’s life, always seems to happen to Zitao? He’s not a horrible person - sure, he doesn’t actively attend church anymore, and he did shoplift once when he was a preteen because his father had been fighting with his mother at the time and had gotten her a birthday present with merely a second’s worth of thought behind it, and Zitao, only fourteen and penniless, had thought she deserved much better and had stolen a handbag, but nobody is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, so why is Zitao the one being punished?

Shuddering, he places his phone back into his shoulder bag as his fingers loosen from his throat and he struggles to breathe, struggles to stand with softened knees upon high pedestals. He can’t deal with something like this while he is at work, especially when there is no window of opportunity for him to say his final goodbyes in person. Knowing his brittle relationship with the president, he doesn’t think it would necessarily be easy at all to explain the situation to him and be given an early leave for the day. At any rate, Zitao doesn’t know what to do.

He finds himself crouching down in the little stretch of the hallway as he gathers his head in his hands and does his best to stop the tears, to quell the tightness in his throat and catch his breath, and he wraps his hands around his own shoulders to help stabilize himself and make his awareness feel safe.

It’s not a strong attack - thank _God_ it isn’t, but Zitao still nevertheless finds himself yearning for the comforting touch of another in times like this. He’s lived through attacks like these many a time before, and he knows he will live through this one, but he can’t find it in himself to stop worrying about what this may mean for his mother’s dated future. He knows her time will come sooner or later, but he’d much rather it be later than sooner, and he’d definitely much rather sooner not be tomorrow.

It’s when he’s sighing into his hands and wiping away the tracks of his tears that he hears the clacking of another person’s shoes, and a woman steps up to him and kneels down in her stance as she says, “Excuse me, miss, are you alright?”

Looking up at her with slightly-blurred vision, Zitao does not recognize her. Of course, he may have only been at work for a select few days, but he isn’t sure he’s ever gotten to cross paths with her before. She’s stereotypically female, thin with lightly-colored curly hair wrapped in a ponytail that pours down her back, bright eyes atop a freckled nose and a strangely cute outfit, something slightly flashy with decorated pinks rather than more professional attire. Zitao doesn’t know her.

Swallowing around a cottony throat, he nods and allows her to help him stand. “I’m okay,” he says hoarsely, and he knows his eyes are probably red and swollen and that in this amount of halogen light, it would be pretty much impossible to not see that. “Thank you.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The woman reiterates once more, and Zitao will probably be okay, he’s not exactly sure yet but there’s a good chance he will be fine. Adjusting his shoulder bag, he nods and tries to force a smile, though it’s hard and it makes his lips sting. “Are you supposed to be somewhere, miss?” The woman asks him again. “Do you need help getting there?”

Actually, not being so alone has made his anxiety go down significantly, and Zitao feels as though he can breathe more easily now. Although the worry is still very prevalent at the forefront of his mind, he feels a little bit calmer. “I was returning to Studio B,” he tells her, and realization dawns on her face as she nods.

“Do you want me to help you get there?” She asks him, smiling, and Zitao notes that when she smiles, her eyes shrink and slit as her freckles scrunch along her facial musculature, light in color and not very contrasted from the shade of her skin.

And although still upset and bothered, Zitao doesn’t think he is going to fall over anymore. “No thank you,” he tells her politely. “I think I’m alright now, thank you, though.”

“Okay,” the girl smiles. “Take care now, alright?”

She turns on her heel and heads out into the foyer and down the east wing, her curled hair bouncing behind her as the golden tones radiate in the lights, and Zitao sighs as he forces himself back into normal focus. What would have happened if the girl had been the president and he had seen Zitao skipping work like that?

Maybe he just needs to immerse himself in some work to get his mind off of everything.

It’s not exactly easy, however, to remain strong when he is by himself. As he walks down the hallway and up the stairs to his studio, the shuddering returns and with it come the tight muscles and the tears, and Zitao hates this. He hates being so emotionally sensitive especially at work, and this was exactly the reason he had been fired from the restaurant was for showing his mental illnesses too much when on company grounds. Still ashamed of the reactions he had gotten in the past, Zitao is too frightened to find out how the president would handle a situation like this.

When he pushes past the double-doors of his studio, the lights are off and the room has sunken into dimmed darkness as the coordinators and the photographer host another shoot, a girl Zitao doesn’t necessarily recognize from afar which simply means _she isn’t Minseo_ , and Zitao takes the opportunity to slink into the darkness as to not disturb them and pull his bag from his shoulder and lay it on the couch, and with a great sigh, he sits himself down onto the padded cushion.

In the darkness, his sadness only amplifies and it’s a mere several seconds before tears stream down his cheeks again, and he sighs as he wipes his under-eyes and tilts his head to the ceiling. He feels utterly pathetic - why can’t he just be strong and stop crying? Being himself, Zitao never had the chance to attach to anyone other than his mother. Sure, he and Luhan are very close, but Zitao never had the opportunity to attach to his father, and never had the opportunity to attach to any grandparents or second-rate parents. If something happens to his mother, Zitao doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Qian is helping out with the shoot alongside Joohyun, and in a more sensitive state than usual, Zitao can’t help but feel jealous as this girl gets assistance from both coordinators when he hadn’t. He’s not sure what must be required of someone to have two coordinators, but Zitao is a little bit sad that it isn’t him who gets that privilege.

It’s when the girl is stepping down from her stool that Qian notices his presence, having turned around and Zitao nearly loses it as the acknowledgement bleeds across the woman’s face, as she jogs over to him with a sucralose smile on her face, and it’s only when she’s knelt down at her level and said, “Hi, Yingtao,” that she notices the pain in his expression and her own begins to sink. “What’s wrong?” She asks in a concerned tone, voice pressed and countenance prudent, perhaps fearing that one touch may set him off.

“Nothing,” he tries to tell her for her own good, knowing that a crying Zitao is a very annoying Zitao. However, her gaze sharpens as her head cocks a little bit to the side, and Zitao can tell that his persuasion is not following successfully through.

“Yingtao,” she repeats in a fluctuating tone, suspicious. “What’s wrong?”

He knows he can probably confide in Qian, but the last thing he would want to do would be to burden her with his issues because he knows he can be a little bit much sometimes. Sniffling as another tear falls and he instinctively raises a hand to shield it, he shakes his head, not wanting to tell her.

Qian sighs then and reaches out to take one of his hands in hers as she stares up at him, eyes soft, before she sighs out, “Yingtao,” and with a pleading expression, she asks, “please tell me?”

Breathing carefully, Zitao trembles as her hands let go of his fingers and smooth up his arms, warm and comforting, and his heart yearns for compassion. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you,” he confesses softly, his voice a few notches above a whisper, and Qian coos sympathetically. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“You can tell me anything, Yingtao, I promise,” the woman smiles helplessly, eyebrows tilted as she doesn’t know exactly how she can help. “It’ll stay just between us, but I cannot force you to tell me anything if you truly don’t want to.”

He is wary, nevertheless, knowing he is not strong enough in this state to follow through with rational thinking. Although not alone in the large studio, they are certainly alone in their immediate personal bubble, and Zitao has at least some confidence that nobody will eavesdrop. Reluctant and teary-eyed, he tells her.

“Oh, Yingtao,” she hums sadly as she moves forward to wrap Zitao in her arms, and he openly cries out his worry into her shoulder, keeping his arms tight at his sides. “I’m so sorry, you poor baby. I hope your friend gets everything sorted out. Are you alright?”

Albeit not really being alright, he nods, not wanting to worry her and rain on her parade.

Still, she does not buy it, and she moves away from him to get his attention. “Look at me,” she says, tapping him gently on the upper back. Shyly, he moves back and meets her eye. As she soaks up the sight of him, and Zitao knows his eye makeup must be runny, her expression softens and she reaches over to a side table and plucks a tissue free from a disposable box upon the table, and as she wraps it around her finger into a point, she begins to dab at his under-eyes with the tissue. “Poor girl,” she shakes her head. “Everything will be okay, I promise you. And no matter what happens, you can always come talk to me, okay? I promise I will never judge you, and I will never ignore you. Just grab me whenever you need me, and I promise I will listen.”

He sniffles, feeling ironically like a used tissue, fragile and crumpled. “I’m sorry,” he cries out, feeling like a nuisance. “You were in the middle of work, and I just - ”

“Yingtao,” Qian says again, rubbing her palms over his shoulders once again. “Our job as coordinators is to take care of the girls, and this is taking care of you, is it not?”

Zitao doesn’t want to think about how material that sounds - it’s just the wording, really, but it makes it sound like she only cares because she’s paid to care. Zitao knows she doesn’t mean it that way, but it’s hard to try to reassure his brain right now when he’s at such a low point, that Qian means no harm. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, sobbing out tearlessly in a soft cry, his bottom lip trembling. “I don’t know what to do. I just want her to be okay.”

Qian sighs, her head lowering as if thinking about something, and Zitao can’t help but worry that he is proving to be irritating. Then, she glances behind herself toward the open section of the studio where the photographer is chatting with the girl who’d stepped down from her stool, a shorter girl in what appears to be a red plaid overcoat with her hair done up, before she glances back at Zitao and meets his eye with a twinkle in her gaze. “Tell you what,” she starts, rubbing her thumbs gingerly over the ridges of his collarbones where they meet his shoulders, “I’ve got nothing to do for a few minutes, and I think Mr. Park is finished with shoots for now, as well. How would you like if I treated you to your own personal shoot to get your mind off of it, hm? All yours, you can wear whatever you like, you can pose however you like, and we can do you up however you like, yeah?”

Zitao’s vision begins to clear, surprised that somebody could be so selfless and willing to help someone who is less than a friend in such a way, and he can’t even wrap his mind around how this could be allowed without the president’s permission, but he would do anything to not be left alone with his thoughts, right now. At least, not until Luhan calls him back with an update. Desperate for immediate companionship, Zitao sniffles and nods his head, and the reaction blooms a pretty grin upon Qian’s pinked lips, as she reaches up and smooths down the top of his hair in a gentle, comforting swipe. “Don’t worry, I will speak to Mr. Park about it so you don’t have to,” she smiles. “And don’t worry about the permission rights - it’s our studio, so we can technically do just about anything we like as long as it benefits the company.”

“Have you done this before with anybody?” He asks, internally hoping that he is special and he could for once be the only one to have gotten a certain privilege.

Unfortunately, Qian nods her head. “I’ve only done it a couple of times. I did it one time with that girl I told you about the other day, the one who had alopecia. I offered her a personalized shoot that didn’t follow any specific theme assigned by the president in hopes of making her feel more confident about herself. It’s not something we do too often because the president usually assigns us several themes per week to make sure we get every single girl to partake in.”

Zitao may not be the biggest fan of being dolled up this way, and although it is not the worst thing he’s ever had to go through aside from having his dick pressed to his taint at all times, it sounds like a very good way to clear his mind and help his focus loosen. “Okay,” he says, and Qian smiles happily.

“I’ll let you pick,” she promises. “I’ll take you into the back closet, not the shoe closet you change in but we’ve got a separate clothing closet on the other side. I’ll take you in there and you can pick out anything to wear, okay?”

Slightly calmed, Zitao nods, though he knows he has barely any experience whatsoever coordinating feminine outfits together and has absolutely no confidence that he will pick anything that actually works together, so with that in mind, he carefully asks, “Will you help me pick something out? I don’t… really know much about putting outfits together.”

“Of course, Yingtao,” she promises, her cheeks round around her smile and her eyes soft and caring. “Come on, let’s go see.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Zitao discovers upon inspection that the president is not someone that often uses vivid, experimental shades in his clothing. The clothing closet is much like a storage room yet well-furnished with pretty ceiling lights and a regal oxblood carpet with gold and cream trim. Unlike the few racks that sit in the left side of the studio when you initially walk in and which contain miscellaneous outfits that would be used that day, the racks in the clothing room are organized by outfit and are color-coordinated, whereas each rack holds one specific kind of outfit in varying sizes. Zitao notices one to his right hung with red plaid overcoats just like the one the girl had been wearing, as well as a rack with black suit-sets similar to the set he had worn on his first day.

As he continues to look around, he notices that the majority of clothing are all within a sort of bracketed set color range, ranging from reds to blues to grays and blacks, some greens and browns and whites, and Zitao only manages to see a select several racks filled with brights and vivids, only enough to count on his hands, and he wonders why the president doesn’t seem to make many clothes with unusual, eye-catching colors. Is he playing it safe, or something?

One thing that does catch Zitao’s eye is a rack off to his right, and on it is one single floor-length red gown, sheened and ruched as it goes down, and he finds himself unable to look away. “That one,” he says, and points at the singular garment, unpackaged as though used, yet Zitao finds it strange that the rack only has the one size and not several.

Over his shoulder, Qian says, “That gown? I don’t know about that one, Yingtao. We don't normally use that one.”

Confused, he looks back at her. “Is it not okay?”

“Oh,” she startles, as though having been caught. “I mean - it should be okay, I think. Are you sure?”

Zitao had been immediately drawn to the dress, a beautiful ruby color in a shiny satin, adorned at the apex of its strapless sweetheart bodice with a golden broach and sparkly golden diamond trim that swirls around it elegantly, and when Zitao looks closely and trails his fingers along it, entranced by its beauty, he notices the broach’s center is coated in resin and is embellished with small golden jewels along its circular outside, and in the very center beneath the glossy coating are the same embroidered initials he’s been seeing on each piece of clothing. “I’m sure,” he says, feeling as though he were meant to pick this one somehow. “If - that’s okay,” he turns to her. “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”

“No, it’s alright,” she tells him with a smile, though Zitao can’t help but see it as slightly forced. “And I think it would go really well with maybe some loose waves, some light makeup with some eyelashes and some peach tones. Oh! I’ve also got some jewelry in the vanities I think would go really well with that. How’s that sound?”

Feeling intrigued, Zitao nods. He’s never gotten to be a beautiful, elegant woman before. “That sounds nice.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I should tell you something,” he says as he sticks his head out of the closet door, feeling suddenly naked and on display for the whole world to see. “I’m - pretty flat-chested, like, _really_ flat. Um… I hope that’s okay.”

Qian tilts her head, then, having crossed her arms and settled against the vanity as she waited. “Are you?” She asks, apparently never having noticed. “But you’ve always had volume there.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “They’re, um… they’re breast pads. I… that’s why I’m self-conscious.”

As she soaks up the statement, Qian actually nods in understanding and stands from her slumped spot. “That’s okay,” she reassures him with a gentle smile. “We’ll get you contoured up, so you can come on out, now.”

Oh. Well, that went much better than he had anticipated - he’d thought that it would have been an issue and that Qian would have gotten angry at him for lying. Is he, perhaps, not the only one in the firm with no breasts?

Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, he slips back into the darkness of the closet, grabs a handful of the gown to lift it from the ground so as to not step on it and tear it, and comes out into the light. Qian’s eyes instantly go wide as her eyebrows raise, both shocked and somewhat impressed, and Zitao can’t help but feel exposed. “You’re gorgeous in red, Yingtao,” she coos in awe. “Wow.”

Unused to so many compliments, Zitao blushes. “I’m sorry for not telling you about… my chest,” he confesses, but Qian simply brushes it off with a shake of her head as she waves him over to the vanity chair.

“Let me tell you something, Yingtao,” she starts to say as Zitao sinks into the chair, and Qian immediately gets to work sliding a barber’s cloak over his front to protect his outfit from stains, and she slides her hands forward into his hair as she ties it back behind him for the meantime. “I told you about how myself and the other staff are trying to boycott the president’s strict dieting rules, right? Well, since the president uses such strict rules when it comes to dieting, the girls lose a lot of weight, and when you lose weight universally, you also lose it in the breasts. You would be simply surprised how many girls I’ve seen go from a d-cup to a triple a-cup.”

Zitao doesn’t know what those words mean, but he assumes it has something to do with breast size.

“So if anybody has experience with faking breast size,” she says with a comical smile. “It would be the coordinators. Don’t worry, Yingtao, we’ll get you nice and _plumped_ , alright?”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Zitao resists laughing at the statement. He’s not sure he’s ever before referred to breasts as plumped. Maybe women enjoy having their breasts being called plump. “I’m gonna get started here,” she tells him as she takes a makeup brush from a holding canister off to the side and swirls it around in something in her hand, something round and container-like. “Okay?”

Confident and ready, Zitao nods and closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Come look, Yingtao.”

He grabs handfuls of the gown as he steps off of the stepstool, having to instinctively look down to make sure neither his breast pads nor his nipples have decided to poke out, and glances over as Mr. Park tilts the camera’s screen toward him to let him see. The shot he’s brought up on the screen is one of Zitao laughing, his lips curled and angled exposing his teeth, the redness of his lips radiating off of the brightness of the ruby gown, his hair wavy as it tinkles down his exposed breast where the broach rests right at the apex of his cleavage. His skin is creamy and slightly tanned, yet slightly golden underneath the milkiness, his cheekbones, his collarbones, and the rounds of his illusioned breasts dusted in a glossy, light-refracting shimmer. Utterly awed, Zitao forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“Impressive, huh?” Mr. Park smiles, and Zitao finds himself unable to piece together words to say. “I thought a nice bright light with a soft exposure worked best - the flash was giving it far too much exposure and it was washing you out, so I was getting too many shadows. And I thought this was the best shot since it looks the most natural. What do you think?”

In all honesty, Zitao doesn’t know what he thinks. It’s an absolutely breathtaking picture, but it’s hard to see it as being _him_ , and therefore, he naturally does not know if he should be happy or not. As though reading into him and his silence, Qian fills in the space as she wraps bare hands around Zitao’s naked shoulders and smiles as she says, “I think she’s so in love that she’s speechless, Mr. Park. You did a fantastic job as always!”

Proud of himself, Mr. Park smiles, retracting the camera to flip through the gallery. “Would you like a copy sent to you, Miss Song?”

“Oh, please do,” Qian laughs, patting the photographer on the upper back in a congratulatory fashion. “Thank you so much for squeezing us into your schedule, I know you are a very busy man.”

“Nah,” Mr. Park waves her off as he slides the camera strap over his head and lets it hang from his neck. “I’m actually not as busy as you might think. Got a couple girls coming in later for a magazine shoot; Mr. Wu has myself and Choi down in Studio F shooting it, and we’re doing it down in the black-box, so I won’t be available after three o’clock. Mr. Wu is overseeing it, you see, so it might take us several hours making sure everything is absolutely perfect because he’s one _hell_ of a perfectionist. Other than that, I don’t have much scheduled for me, today.”

Laughing, Qian turns to Zitao and wraps a protective arm around his shoulders to give him a squeeze, and Zitao is thankful to work with such a kindhearted person. “What about you, Yingtao?” She asks softly, caressing the round of his shoulder with the pad of her thumb. “Mr. Park, could Yingtao keep a copy of the photos as well?”

The photographer shrugs, eyebrows raised. “I don’t see why not, as long as she doesn’t solicit them for self-profit. They are company property, technically, but I don’t see a problem with her having them as keepsakes.”

A smile. “What do you think?”

Proud of himself, Zitao would absolutely love to show the world what he’s created. However, he has to remind himself that he still hasn’t briefed his mother on exactly what it is he does and hasn’t really told the internet much at all past his interview acceptance. Would he get in trouble for posting the photos on his blogs? Zitao doesn’t want to get the legalities jumbled. “I mean,” he shrugs, rouged lips pursing. “If you’re getting a copy, then I think it would only be fair that I also get a copy, considering I’m the art, here.”

Unused to Zitao’s dry humor, the two adults laugh, Qian’s eyebrows twisting in disbelief as she hugs him to her. “Oh, Yingtao,” she sighs with a grin on her lips. “You’re quite a character, you are. Please never take off from work, it might prove to be too boring for me.”

“I’ll get them to you possibly by tomorrow morning, Yingtao,” Mr. Park tells him graciously. “I’ve got to upload them to the company database and make distributable copies. If you would prefer, I could either send them to your company email, or I can hand them to you when you come in tomorrow on a disc. Which would be easier?”

For digital prints, Zitao finds it would simply be quicker to already have them on a digital device. “Email would be easier,” he tells the photographer, lips curling into a tight grin. “Thank you, Mr. Park.”

Politely, the man thanks him for his artistry and bows upon departure, setting his camera onto a side desk as he begins to clean up from the shoot, folding up the stepstool and bringing it over to the rack of backdrops. Having been unsettled nearly the entire shoot, Zitao breathes an increasingly calming sigh. Come to think of it, the shoot really did help to get his mind off of the phone call, and now that he thinks about it, his anxiety isn’t nearly as prevalent anymore. Whatever will happen, will happen, and Zitao knows he will just have to accept it and learn to work with it.

And for how touchy and sensitive he can be when threatened with a panic attack, Zitao knows he isn’t the easiest person to deal with - yet Qian was absolutely remarkable, as patient as can possibly be and so wholly altruistic, such a considerate soul to be presented with, and Zitao feels indebted to her. “Qian,” he calls out softly, and the woman turns to him with a slightly distracted expression, having turned away from him to interact with Mr. Park. “Thank you… for taking care of me.”

As the words settle along particles in the air, Qian’s gaze begins to soften, and her lips begin to shine. “You’re very welcome, Yingtao. I’m glad you are feeling better now. Is that what you needed?”

Sighing contentedly, he nods, finally feeling somewhat happy. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Qian smiles. “I hope everything goes well with your mother, Yingtao. Let me know if you ever need anything else, okay?”

As Zitao unwinds, smiles, and finds his solace again, Qian hugs him, and he finds himself tearing at the very feeling of being held by such a warm, loving presence. In hindsight, it really makes him miss his mother.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“That’s not you.”

Zitao rolls his eyes, leaning back against his couch with his arms crossed over his chest. “Then who would it be? I’m not a monozygotic twin, you know.”

In disbelief, his best friend’s lip curls at the edge, exposing a section of the row of his teeth, nose scrunched as Zitao’s laptop reflects off of his glasses. “Okay, well, yeah it is you, but still, that’s not you. You’re fucking... crazy gorgeous, fucking snatching my damn wig. I might just have to make you my wife if I were straight.”

He snorts, “Are you telling me I’m ugly?”

Luhan shoots him a bewildered look, eyebrows furrowed, as he settles his elbows on his knees and looks at him. “Tao, I think you might need to lay off the hairspray, I think it’s starting to get to you. If there’s anyone in the world that looks like an unbleached asshole, believe me, it’s my ugly ass. You don’t have to live with appearance duality, you’re cute all the time. People like me, we wake up ugly and make up hot, but that’s duality. You, my friend, are just attractive all the time.”

Zitao laughs and shakes his head, not surprised in the least bit that his best friend would butter him up to this degree. Even so, Luhan is nowhere near unattractive, either, and since Zitao knows him so well and knows that Luhan is not one to be self-conscious and self-hating, and he knows that this is only a strategy to make Zitao feel better about himself and help close the self-impression gap between the two of them.

“Anyway,” Luhan sighs, settling back against the couch cushions, tiredness in his eyes. “I’m really sorry for what happened today.”

By now, Zitao has accepted it, and he knows there isn’t much he can actually do about it without speaking to the president and crossing his fingers for a raise. “It’s not your fault,” he tells him, because it truly isn’t Luhan’s fault, and Zitao has to remind himself that it truly isn’t his, either. He has to remind himself that this is just another one of those curveballs that life throws at people from time to time, and that this is an obstacle he is going to have to learn to overcome. “My coordinator at work let me do this shoot to get my mind off of it. Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you, or anything.”

Despite the reassurance, Luhan sighs. “I just wish there was more I could actually do, you know? They were entirely unhelpful when I went down there today, told me I need to show identification and when I did, they told me I wasn’t allowed to be involved in this matter because I’m not blood-related. What a bunch of shit, especially when I’ve been paying for the treatments for six months, already. I even tried telling them that! All they did was shake their heads and tell me that _now that Huang Zitao is self-sufficient in payment, we are not accepting payments from second-rate associates._ They can all collectively eat my whole ass.”

He frowns, “Second-rate associates? What the heck does that mean?”

“Friends,” he mumbles, chuckling humorlessly. “Strangers. Distant cousins. People that aren’t immediately involved with you, apparently. Not sure how a best friend isn’t considered immediately involved with you, but whatever.”

“You could wire the money into my bank account,” Zitao offers, and his friend raises a single eyebrow as he sighs, slumping back. “I mean - not for me to steal! Just, maybe that would be easier since it’s still technically my account, you know?”

“We could try that,” Luhan nods. “I just have to see if the bank has any requirements on how much can be deposited at a time because I don’t want it to look suspicious.”

Zitao nods, understanding well what this means for his future. This means if something goes awry with the banking, Zitao will have to bust his ass twice as hard and will have to start brown-nosing the president for higher pay. Although unfair and embarrassing, Zitao doesn’t have much of a choice. “I’m going to speak to my boss about it,” Zitao says in a small voice. “You know, see if I can kiss his ass a little bit. If that doesn’t work, I’ll let you know and we can proceed with trying to wire our banks together, okay?”

“Keep me posted,” his friend agrees, as Zitao sits up to reach forward for his cup of tea. “Also, sucking dick is always a good method of persuasion, but I wouldn’t recommend that if your boss isn’t into that kind of thing.”

In an unfair turn of events, Zitao nearly chokes to death on his tea.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao hadn’t realized how unfulfilling eating salad was until he’d let go of his regular everyday diet and had suddenly remembered what constant hunger feels like. The only thing eating this many vegetables is going to do is shrink his stomach - is this what is required of him? He sighs as he heads around the corner back to his studio, still kind of hungry but satisfied for now, and pushes past the double-doors.

He’d checked the board right after leaving the cafeteria, and hadn’t had any immediate work for him to complete, but Zitao knows he’s got a shoot in about an hour’s time, therefore he is patient and isn’t opposed to killing time in the studio so that nobody has to track him down when the time comes.

When he enters, there is not a shoot in the midst for once, and it’s such an uncommon occurrence that Zitao finds himself impressed by the newness, as he lays his bag down on a cushioned chair. What is also an uncommon occurrence is that the studio is absolutely bustling, handfuls of women Zitao is not familiar with talking to each other in dignified groups, as though friends, and it’s yet another reminder that Zitao has none. Well, there’s Minseo, but Zitao doesn’t want to get ahead of himself and label things without knowing certainly if Minseo even wants to be friends with someone like him.

And sure, he knows he’s got Qian on his side, but it’s a lonely feeling knowing he isn’t accepted by the masses simply because of the department he’s in, and it might suck, but sacrifices have to be made sometimes for the greater good.

Speaking of which, Zitao notices that Qian is busy at one of the vanities as the fiddles with a girl’s hair, chatting with her in their own selective tone. She glances up and makes eye contact with him in the mirror, and raises a hand in a happy wave before returning to the conversation. Surprised and charmed by the acknowledgment, Zitao waves back.

Does Qian ever experience loneliness? Sure, she says she has friends, but Zitao has known some people who had friends to also experience crippling loneliness. Zitao wonders if she has any experience with mental illness, whether it be herself or maybe even someone she knows. He wonders if there have been models in the past who dealt with depression the same way and if Qian had to be equally as proactive with them as she had been with him by distracting him with the shoot.

Besides, it doesn’t exactly help that some of the girls glance over at him every now and then before covering their mouths as if laughing and Zitao knows they’re laughing at him. It can’t possibly be his appearance - Zitao spent a good hour practicing his makeup this morning and picking out an outfit that actually looked decent with what little coordination knowledge he has, merely a long, flowy, cappuccino-colored skirt with floral embroidery along the hem and a pastel pink blouse that billows elegantly at his wrists. He’s not wearing anything bizarre, so what’s so funny?

Zitao forces himself to look away, figuring out of sight, out of mind, until he registers the familiarity of heels clicking on polished flooring and glances back, seeing that same lady from the initiation that stared at him in displeasure walking straight toward him, her handbag held delicately in front of her lap. It’s Jessica, right?

As he watches her approach, she stops before him, towering over him as he’s seated, before a candied smile graces her pink lips as she asks, “Miss Huang, right?”

Skeptical, he nods. “Yingtao,” he says, “you can call me Yingtao.”

“So, Yingtao,” she says with a feminine drawl. “We saw the prints you took the other day on the company database - you know, the ones in the red dress? And we all thought we should probably tell you that your neck looked kind of thick, and we figured you might want to maybe wear neck trainers and, you know, slim it up right there. Just our opinion.”

Zitao frowns; is that supposed to be an insult? He’s never heard of people insulting the shape of someone’s neck. “Excuse me?” He asks flatly, unsure of why exactly it is she’s bringing up something like that. Even if his neck is unusually thick for a woman, which he can understand being a man, how is that any of her business?

“Oh, don’t take it personally,” she tells him in that same sugary, high tone her voice always holds, eerily inauthentic. “We just thought we would help you out since you’re such an experienced professional.”

Not having been born yesterday, Zitao knows sarcasm when he hears it. “Do you have some kind of problem with me?” He asks her calmly. Is there a reason why she’s acting like this? What would someone possibly gain from insulting another person? Even if Zitao weren’t to take offense to it, which he doesn’t, that’s certainly not a _compliment._

Jessica merely smiles, shaking her head, “No, there’s no problem at all. I just think, from my personal experience, that if you happen to have what it takes to become best-selling, you should have a thinner neck. That’s all.”

He knows what she’s getting at - she’s peeved because he’s in Marketing, isn’t she? This is what he’s been dealing with ever since he started here last Monday, and he would have thought everyone would have gotten over it since it’d been over a week with them having time to acquaint themselves with him, but why is it she still seems hung up? Bothered, he stands up from his seat, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know what you expect me to do,” he tells her in a stoic tone. “It’s my neck, and if it was such an issue, then the president would have brought it up to me and I would have gone out of my way to fix it, but since it has not been discussed with me par the president’s request, I don’t really give a rat’s ass what you have to say about my appearance.”

One of her eyebrows twitches, attempting to raise. “Ooh, feisty, are we?” She smirks, arms crossed. “I mean, it could be the same reason why you’re in Marketing when we’ve never seen you around the firm - _surely_ you and the president must be fucking, because after all, that’s how people earn easy jobs, hm?”

“Why are you making assumptions about me?” He asks in a slightly strained voice. “It’s none of your business why I got this job. You don’t even know me.”

“I’m only asking,” she purses her lips, speaking as though an innocent child, “because that’s how I was promoted, too. And the only explanation for someone to be hired here and completely bypass the Rec department would be if they were having sex with the president, so please - ” she reaches out in a snappy grab and latches onto Zitao’s upper arm, pulling it close to her as though threatening him, “ - do not lie to me. You _are_ fucking the president, aren’t you, Yingtao?”

“No,” he shrugs, in the mood for sarcasm and snide remarks as he continues with, “but we did breathe near each other for a few seconds the other day. It was pretty intense, got me all hot under the collar.”

Her grip tightens. “Cut the _shit_.”

“What do you want from me?” He rips his arm from her grip, attracting some eyes, and he watches as her gaze flares in heat as though displeased with that reaction. “Can’t you just mind your own business? I’m not fucking the president, and even if I was, it’s none of your business what I do. Do you feel inferior? Is that it? All because I didn’t need to have as much sex as you to get where I am?”

Lips pressed together in visible anger, she lashes out in a shove against his upper body, causing him to teeter back slightly as his calves knock into the couch, and he resists fighting back because he is above hitting a girl, even if they believe he is one. “ _What_?” She spits between tight lips. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he states flatly, honestly fed up with this week. “You’re upset all because you have competition, don’t you? You’re upset that someone doesn’t buy your shit, that someone doesn’t _take_ your shit, and that someone is just as deserving of what you have as you are. What, are you upset that you can’t be the best?”

She presses her lips together, sinking her teeth into her bottom one as she visibly tries to restrain herself, before she bites out, “How _dare_ you speak to your superior that way.”

The reaction makes Zitao laugh, truly laugh as his shoulders shake and the corners of his mouth raise. “I see what this is about. You refuse to be at the same level as anybody else, and you always have to be at the top, don’t you? I would suck it up because I am not your inferior - we are in the same department, which makes us equals, whether you like it or not. I am sorry that maybe _some_ people find me pretty, but people other than yourself are allowed to be looked at, you know.”

Jessica seems to fight with her inner turmoil for a few seconds, heaving pressed breaths as though from anger, as she stares him down and her cheeks flush. “A woman is not pretty if the mouth she speaks with is riddled with filth.”

“That’s okay,” he shrugs. “My vernacular has no bearing on my outward appearance, so I can swear all I want, and you’ll just have to get fucking used to it.”

She shoves him once more, this time with more force behind it, and he goes toppling back onto the chair beneath him, as her chest heaves in anger and her hands tremble by her sides, and Zitao takes a calming breath as she stares down at him. He will not hit a woman, even if he is pretending to be one.

“What is the meaning of this?” Zitao hears several feet away, and the two of them glance over to see the president striding over unhappily, hands mechanically straight at his sides, disapproval painted all over his face.

“Oh - Mr. Wu!” Jessica coos helplessly, her countenance immediately shattering as she turns to the president with a beseeching expression. “I was just having a little chat with Miss Huang, here, and I told her how pretty she looked today, and then she started getting angry at me, and - and she _hit_ me!” She cries out, and Zitao’s expression falls in abhorrence.

“You’re joking,” he deadpans. “I never laid my hands on you once - _you_ shoved me down onto the chair.”

“How could you lie like that, Yingtao?” Jessica cries out, eyes glassy. “Oh, my precious cheek - ow, ow.”

So this is how it’s going to be, all because she’s envious of him and can’t keep her words nor her hands to herself. Knowing he is not the one with the advantage, being such a new employee, he folds his arms over himself and rolls his eyes. “There’s not even a mark there, don’t lie to the president of all people.”

“You could have knocked out one of my teeth!” Jessica whines in response, and Zitao doesn’t bother to answer her.

The president gives him a kindled glare, aggravated yet toned down, before he turns to face Jessica and places a careful palm on her upper back, and a twinge of envy bolts through him. “Is that true, Jessica?” He asks, and Zitao averts his eyes as he awaits his unavoidable fate. This is disgustingly unfair, and he hates that people like Jessica can just swindle their way into work and can swindle other people out of it so carelessly.

“Of course,” she crows, trailing fingers intimately up the president’s arm where he half-holds her, and Zitao could vomit. “Why would I lie to you?”

It’s then that the president lets out a deep sigh through his nose, collected and somewhat disappointed, and Zitao is afraid to look at him. “Do you have any more work to do here?” He asks _her_ , and not _Zitao_ , he discerns from the trajectory of his tone. It’s too gentle to be for him, especially when all of the odds in this situation are stacked in her favor, and not his.

“No, Mr. Wu,” she responds gently. “I was speaking with Mr. Park and Mr. Chan about my upcoming shoot with Cosmopolitan so we could all pick a time that did not interfere with our schedules.”

Seeing the response as fit, the president gives her a curt nod and removes his hand from around her back. “Then return to your studio,” he tells her in that typically rigid tone, albeit still much gentler than the way he speaks to anybody else, and if Zitao didn’t know any better, he’d say they might have feelings for one another. Nevertheless, it’s not his business. “And Miss Huang,” the president continues with flatness in his voice, deep and thick. “Come with me.”

He doesn’t meet the president’s eye as he stands from the chair and follows him out into the hallway in shame, knowing very well what is coming and where the president is taking him. He is not shocked in the least bit as he follows the president’s shoes in his peripherals to the elevator, is not shocked when the president steps in and waits for him to follow, and is definitely not shocked when the president presses the button for the top floor, the floor where the president’s office resides, and the floor where Zitao’s employment contract resides.

He wonders how many times he is going to be allowed to screw up before enough becomes enough, and Zitao has a feeling that today might be his confirmation day.

The president allows him to enter his office first before he closes the door behind him, and Zitao barely keeps it together as the president moves back into sight and steps languidly over to his desk, his hands resting at his lower back. Zitao doesn’t know if he can handle being fired like this especially it not being his fault, and especially not after the weekend he’s had. “Tell me what happened,” the president suddenly speaks up, and when Zitao looks up to meet his eye, he notices that the president has rested his palms on his desk and leaned himself comfortably over it as he watches him, one single dark lock of hair having sprung free from his coif as it hangs over his forehead handsomely. “And tell me only the truth, Miss Huang. I am not in the mood for lies.”

“I didn’t start it,” he blurts out quietly, solemnly, and the president’s gaze sharpens just a tad as he listens intently. “I really didn’t, Mr. Wu, please believe me.”

“Plead for your case,” the president instructs. “I asked what happened, not who started it nor who ended it.”

Zitao wrings his hands together nervously, his bottom lip beginning to tremble as he resists crying. He knows it would be silly to cry here because he doesn’t think even tears would be able to save his job should the president believe Jessica over him - and Zitao might have to streak naked if the president doesn’t favor her. “I truthfully don’t know, Mr. Wu,” he confesses quietly, averting his eyes from direct contact. “I had just come back from lunch, and Jessica just - approached me after laughing at me with her friends, I don’t know any of them to be able to tell you who, but she approached me and began to… to make fun of my appearance, and the shots I took on Friday that were uploaded to the database. I have no idea why she did that, Mr. Wu, but I really didn’t start it! After that, she started to push me and shoved me down onto the couch, like she wanted me to hit her back.”

The man’s eyebrows furrow slightly as his eyes shift away for a moment as if mulling the situation over. “You did not put your hands on her?” The president asks carefully, and Zitao is quick to shake his head. “She said that you did strike her, Miss Huang. And you should know, as an employee of mine for over six years, I am fervently inclined to believe her. Are you aware of where your future rests in the balance, Miss Huang?”

“Please, Mr. Wu,” he begs, tears beginning to spring to his waterlines. “I really didn’t do anything.”

The president inhales through his nose as he stands from his hunched stance, straightening his posture as he smooths a hand over his hair and rakes back the lock that had fallen. “I do not have the time to assess catty misdemeanors, Miss Huang. You are how old?”

He sniffles, his tears dripping down his face in long, wet lines, “Twenty-three, sir.”

“Then you need to begin acting like it, Miss Huang,” the president stresses, and Zitao notices through the tears that his voice has become strained as though he is on his last resort. “You are not in high school, and I cannot have you crying in my office every single week all because you pick fights, and especially not with my highest-selling model.”

“But I really didn’t start it,” Zitao sobs, and the president sets his tongue in his cheek.

He is losing this battle rapidly, and he knows that every tear that falls may very well be another shovelful of dirt he’s removing from his grave site, so to pathetically try to sop himself up like a soggy tissue, he wipes his under-eyes and stares at the ceiling, hoping to will back anymore oncoming. “Miss Huang,” the president says quietly, and Zitao looks back down. “I will not say this outside of my office, and I will most certainly only say this once, so if I hear you repeat this on any occasion outside of this office, I will be forced to take disciplinary action. You being in Marketing is a massive privilege, and I am not afraid to rip it right out of your hands should I find out that you have been involved in a tussle with _anybody_. Do I make myself clear?”

His eyes widen slightly, his voice dying out. “You didn’t… bring me here to fire me?”

Unimpressed, the president quirks an eyebrow upward. “I am debating it,” he says flatly. “Simply answer my question.”

The startling confession only makes Zitao more emotional, and he covers his mouth with his hands as the tears fall. “Yes, Mr. Wu. I’m listening.”

“Jessica is a very trustworthy employee of mine,” the president continues, smoothly sinking down into his desk chair and rolling it forward as he folds his hands atop his desk space. “This event having not been physically endangering to either of you, I am not going to bother with checking the cameras to see who started it, so I am going to let you off with a warning, Miss Huang. Understand that you will not be given many chances, and you can regard it as though a three-strike basis. You are on strike one, do I make myself clear?”

He nods, “Yes, Mr. Wu. I’m so sorry, I - ” he tries to say, yet the sobs only intensify and steal the breath right from his throat as he gasps pitifully and covers his mouth as his vision blurs, as his body trembles, and as he breaks down right in the president’s office. “I’m so sorry. I’m…”

Wordlessly, the president drums his fingers on the polished surface of his desk, and Zitao follows the noise to see that the man is gesturing a tissue box in his direction for him to take. Thankful, Zitao sullenly reaches forward to pluck a tissue from the box before the president sets it back down onto the desk. Carefully, Zitao dabs at his eyes with the tissue and falls crestfallen when he realizes his makeup is smearing, and his sinuses have begun to clog. It’s embarrassing to cry like this in front of the president, but the stress is all too much for him right now. He can’t handle something like this after the anxiety he’s gotten from his financial situation, and especially when his own job has been put on the line for something he didn’t even partake in or create. Zitao absolutely hates this.

Then, as he steps forward to dispose of the dirtied tissue in the president’s desk-side bin and as he reaches for a clean one, he hears the president very gently say, “Miss Huang,” and when Zitao looks up, startled, at the warm, soft tone of the man’s voice, he continues. “What is the matter?”

His hands still where he’d been wrapping the tissue around his finger for more control, and he looks up at the man with blurry eyes. What is the man asking him, exactly? He can’t possibly be concerned about him, could he? “What - what do you mean?” He asks.

“I meant exactly what I said,” the president elaborates in the same low, soft tone, uncharacteristically gentle in a way that makes Zitao want to be held. “It is not like you to cry to this extent. If I or a colleague have done something to upset you, I would like for you to tell me so that I may fix it.”

Drawn to the comfort in the man’s voice, Zitao finds himself staring back into those dark brown eyes, so cold and guarded and contradictory to the tone of his words. “It’s not you,” he starts with, sniffling into the tissue balled up in his fingers like a small child. “It’s… it’s my mother. The hospital… well, now that I’m employed and now that I have my own salary to be taxed on, they… my - my best friend had been paying for my mother’s hospital bills when I couldn’t afford them, you see, and they removed him as a source of payment without my knowledge and consent, and… they’re now expecting me to be able to afford all of it. But… but I can’t, not after my taxes. It’s just… it’s just a small deficit, only a couple grand and it shouldn’t be a problem to allow my best friend to fill it, but they won’t let me, and I’m just… I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do,” he sobs openly, burying his eyes in the tissue as he leaks once more. “I don’t know what is going to happen to my mother.”

As he listens, the president falls still, training his eyes on the girl as she cries, as she shatters completely before his very eyes, and he has to clear his throat to get his own self back on track and out of his headspace. “I apologize greatly for your troubles,” he confesses in a low tone. “Is she suffering from this?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses dismally, the sobs wracking his body and jittering his words. “She is already not sleeping well, you know? She’s in a lot of pain all the time, and she’s always exhausted, but the doctors can’t prescribe her any more morphine without the risk of it killing her, and they can’t give her a higher dosage of her sleeping medication without the risk of it thinning her blood, and if she falls, she could hemorrhage internally and die, especially when she tries to go to the bathroom, and I just - I don’t know what to do. I can’t - I can’t _think_ in this state, I don’t know - I don’t know.”

The president is silent, his facial expression entirely smoothed and relaxed, perhaps the calmest he has looked all afternoon, before he leans back in his chair to access a drawer to the left of himself, on Zitao’s right, and pulls the drawer open with an audible mechanical grind. “Your mother,” he starts, and Zitao watches as he pulls out a company folder, and with it a checkbook, and lays them down on the desk as he closes the drawer, “is she being held at the same hospital that you volunteer at? The one that you put on your application?”

He blinks, unsure of where this is going. “Yes, sir. I earn minimum-wage by volunteering there.”

“How extensive is the deficit?” The president asks. “Upon filing your tax reports, you might have been given an estimate as to how much would be taken out of each paycheck to be taxed.”

“I think just over a thousand dollars,” he says in a tiny voice. “My mother’s treatments are uninsured at just about twenty-thousand dollars each month.”

He watches as the president’s eyebrows raise for a split-second at the mention of the price, and Zitao isn’t even fully sure he hadn’t just imagined it. Then, he watches as the president tucks his fingers into the folder and rifles through, procuring a small, ordinary-sized postage envelope enclosed with something beneath the seal. After he sets the envelope aside, he reaches across his desk for a pen from a holding canister before clicking it and beginning to scribble something down onto the checkbook. Zitao is silent, not wanting to ask questions if they will be answered by simply waiting and seeing what moves the president makes.

As he waits, he is rewarded with the moment the man finally tears the top sheet off, pairs it with the envelope, and holds the items out for Zitao to take. “Your paycheck was not due for handout until this Friday,” the president tells him coolly, “but there are circumstances that you must follow given your check early. This check must be put directly to the hospital, and I have assigned an additional check from my personal bank account for five thousand dollars should there be any arguments about the deficit. If I find out you used this money for any purpose other than what was intended, I will take legal action against you to get it back. Do you understand, Miss Huang?”

He trembles as he takes his belongings from the president’s hands, positive this time that he _must_ be dreaming, and his eyes blur as he glances down at the president’s systematic calligraphy etched along the lines. “Sir,” he gasps out softly, tearing up once more. Is this another one of those biased occurrences, or is this another one of those soft moments of his? “Sir, I…”

“Was I not clear, Miss Huang?” The president asks once more, as passive and unaffected as anything, yet Zitao is the one who finds himself taken aback. “This money is not for your personal consumption. As an employer held accountable for your welfare, I am obligated to take the measures necessary to ensure that you offer a satisfactory job performance. If things get in the way of that, I may step in to assist depending on the severity of what it is that has occurred. Again, I reiterate - this money is not for your personal gluttony. This is for you to fix what has gone wrong, so that you may stop crying every time you step into my office, Miss Huang.”

With the tissue pressed to his face, he sniffles to contain his sobs and presses the envelope and the check gratuitously to his bosom. “Thank you so much, Mr. Wu. I promise I will not abuse this.”

“Take a break, Miss Huang,” the president tells him alongside a sigh. “Whether or not you have used both of your breaks already, I would like for you to take another to recollect yourself. Feel free to take your time if you do not have any immediate assignments, and if you find that any other persons seem to have issue with you, please bring it to my attention and I will have it dealt with accordingly.”

Somberly, he squeals quietly as another sob tears through him and does his best to weakly bow in respect. “Thank you,” he bleats out. “Thank you so much.”

The president merely nods in response, and Zitao collects himself enough to turn back and step out of the office, a jovial gait in his step and a newfound hope in his heart. Things might be okay for now until Zitao can figure something else out to successfully fund each treatment that bypasses this month’s, but for now, Zitao can finally sleep at ease.

Behind him in his wake, the president sighs aloud and rubs his face with tensed fingers, until he reaches out for his desk phone, types a number into the soft keys on the button pad, and holds it to his ear. He waits until the ringing stops and until he is greeted with the operator’s voice, asking him to where she may direct his call. “Extension 5102, Finances.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao very carefully slides a plate from the prewashed stack, beginning to spoon some food onto it for his mother under the guise of today’s scripted menu. “Are you even allowed to do this?” Luhan asks him over his shoulder, suspicion heavily lacing his voice. “I’m not trying to get in trouble like this.”

“I’m a volunteer here,” he responds. “I’m allowed to do anything as long as it isn’t illegal or strenuous and damaging to company property. Besides, it’s one less thing for Nurse Lily to have to do, and if I’m capable of doing it myself, then I would be willing to help alleviate her workload.”

“You’re weird,” Luhan complains behind him, and Zitao turns to him with a handful of silverware and hands it out to him.

“Maybe so,” he shrugs with the plate of food in hand, “but the staff are people, too, and people grow tired and need assistance every now and then. Besides, it’s no big deal, it’s just getting her lunch. It’s not like I’m organizing the company information and running the risk of tampering with it.”

Luhan sighs as he takes the fork and spoon combo from Zitao’s hand and lets his hand go lax at his side, as though overreacting to seem made of rubber, before he says, “Alright, well, let’s get out of here before someone comes and yells at us. That’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Nobody will yell at us,” Zitao tells him as they walk through the commissary hall. “Hi, Jungmin,” he calls out, raising his hand in a wave. Across the room, Jungmin responds by waving back, a sharp knife in hand as he cuts the food on his plate. When they step out into the hall, they wrap around the corner to come down the little hallway before entering the lobby, looking strangely out of character with a plate of food and commissary silverware, but Zitao has done this several times before with the staff’s permission, so he is not too bothered by the eyes on him of the patients waiting to be seen in the holding area. As he comes just around the turn to approach the front desk, however, he grabs onto his best friend’s shirt ahead of him to stop him in his tracks and ducks down, attempting to hide behind the shape of Luhan’s body. “Stop, _stop_ ,” he hisses quietly, and Luhan turns his head over his shoulder in confusion.

“What?” He asks quickly. “What’s wrong?”

Taking a calming breath, Zitao stairs at the plaid twill of the man’s shirt before him. “Don’t look now, but my boss is right over there at the front desk.”

Glancing back up against his friend’s word, Luhan suddenly intakes a sharp breath that resonates through his whole abdomen beneath Zitao’s fingertips before saying, “Holy _shit_ , he’s hot. God, how much do you think I’d have to pay him to sit on that dick?”

Not all the way shocked, Zitao sighs. “Thanks for not looking over there now.”

“Why are you hiding, though?” Luhan asks. “Don’t you wanna go say hi?”

Sighing briskly, Zitao glances very quickly around the shape of the boy’s body to watch his boss walk away from the front desk and head down the hallway to the left, the same one Zitao had seen him head into the other day. He had not, however, seen which way the president went beyond that, since there are also stairs in the fire exit in that hallway, and the man could have very well walked up to a different floor entirely. “He can’t see me as a boy,” Zitao stresses as he stands back up, relinquishing his hold on his best friend’s shirt.

“What if he just thinks you’re Yingtao’s brother or something?” Luhan shrugs as he turns back around to face his friend. “I mean, people do have brothers, and at best, you could tell him you’re a twin, it’s not illogical.”

“Han, I really don’t want to go down that route,” he shakes his head. “I’d much rather he not know that this side of me exists.”

“Alright, alright, miss your opportunity for some great, expensive dick, but okay,” Luhan alludes. “You know, your monologuing is making your mother’s food cold, over here.”

Having forgotten their original purpose, Zitao glances down to the plate of food in his hand. “Here,” he says quickly, suddenly, passing the plate over, and Luhan scrambles to grab it while also holding his mother’s silverware. “Take it. I’m… gonna follow him.”

“Oh, Tao, you sly dog, you,” Luhan gives him a greasy smirk. “Use protection.”

“I’m not gonna fuck him,” Zitao hisses through tight lips. “I’m going to see where he went. Make sure mom eats her lunch, okay? I’ll be back soon.”

Luhan gives him an impassive pat on the back as he heads through the lobby and straight to Zitao’s mother’s door, open and brightly lit to signify that his mother is in her room. Right, okay. Calmly, Zitao takes a deep breath and turns on his heel to head to the hallway bathrooms. Surely if he’s going to go on a stalking spree, he’s going to need some kind of a disguise.

And if there’s one thing Zitao knows about the hospital bathrooms from how many times he’s cleaned them for a few extra dollars, it’s that each one has a disposer mechanism on the wall by the sinks which offer disposable face masks.

Slyly, he slides one of the masks from the disposer opening and unfolds it before stretching the strings to wrap them around his ears, effectively masking his face from the bulb of his nose and downward, only showing his eyes over the rim of the coated fabric. With his face mostly concealed and his short hair fluffed around his ears and over his forehead which it never is at work, Zitao finds some comfort in the confidence he has that he looks nothing like Yingtao this way.

Now, which way would Mr. Wu have gone?

Zitao gazes warily down the left hallway, peeking into his mother’s room just for a moment to see Luhan sitting on the bedside chair, spooning food into his mother’s mouth as he chats away with her with a pleased expression on his face, his mother laughing as she chews, her shoulders and bosom bouncing with each chuckle. He’s glad to see that his mother has some energy today enough to laugh and interact openly. Nowadays, she is very tired and sleeps most of the day whenever Zitao comes to visit. He cannot complain, however, because that would be selfish of him to demand something that his mother cannot physically give.

Alright, he thinks to himself as he steps away from the room and takes a deep breath. There’s the room at the end of the hallway, and then there is the intensive care ward upstairs - would Mr. Wu have gone there? he wonders. Who might he be here to see if they happen to stay in intensive care?

Cautious and wary about the weight of his footsteps, Zitao takes careful, quiet steps down the hallway, glancing past the left-wing bathrooms as he notices his reflection in the distant mirror from the door having been propped open. Surely Mr. Wu can’t associate him with Yingtao when he’s in this state, right? Zitao may be no master of disguise, but surely someone who’s only known him less than two weeks would not be able to make the connection. He tiptoes quietly down the hall toward the double-doors, careful to not draw attention to himself - when he freezes in his step, heart rabbiting against his chest.

Instantly, he makes a dive to hide himself against the breadth of the wall, out of sight from the doorway and pulse racing in wariness of whether or not he’d been spotted already, a young man dressed in all black with a sheened, dark slate-colored disposable mask on his face peeping intrusively into the rooms of strangers. Taking a shuddered breath to stabilize himself, he carefully turns himself over to his side, places his palms noiselessly along the wall, and peeks over the edge of the doorway.

The room is slightly different than the one his mother resides in, less sunlight filtering in and the lights more dimmed, a dark brown curtain pulled out halfway across the room to give someone privacy. There is no sound, indicating that if there happens to be a television mounted to the wall as there usually is, it is not on, but Zitao can’t seem to focus on anything other than his heartbeat in his ears and the sight before his eyes.

There’s an elderly woman laid out on the bed, her eyes contentedly shut as though asleep, and the president is sat beside her in a bedside chair, slightly hunched over her body as he’s laid halfway on top of her, his head resting comfortably on her flattened bosom. He is still dressed from work, still in a pinstriped suit and polished shoes, and Zitao watches with bated breath as neither of them moves, merely indulging in each other’s company, the only movement being the rhythmic swiping of the woman’s gentle, discolored fingers that she rakes delicately through his hair in a slow, lethargic manner.

Zitao swallows. Could that be the president’s wife? Zitao isn’t necessarily sure how such a young woman, should she happen to be around the president’s age, could look so emaciated and so worn down, when - no, that can’t be his wife or even a sister. That… must be his mother.

His gaze widens, eyes beginning to gloss in sympathy, as he soaks up the precious sight, something so soft and wordless that speaks absolute novels. Is the president’s mother very sick, as well? Is that why the president has been so lenient on him with the rules and had alluded to the fact that it was due to Zitao’s mother? Overwhelmed with affection over his new discovery, Zitao feels as though he could cry.

It all makes sense now, why Zitao was given special treatment and why the president’s responses about it are so vague and professional. He’s in the same boat that Zitao is in, isn’t he?

He wonders, briefly, if what the president’s mother is sick with might be terminal. He knows how he would react to his own mother’s passing, but how would the president react? Somehow, the thought of what may occur should the president have such a kindred spirit taken away from him hurts Zitao deep inside, like a stab wound from the inside-out, and he lets out a trembling breath as he wills the thought away. He cannot handle other people’s despair, let alone his own.

He turns away from the doorway to rest himself back against the wall, willing the tears away. It is not the time to cry, not right now - there is nothing that his tears can do to fix what has been broken, but Zitao doesn’t know how to deal with death even if it does not pertain to him nor directly affect him.

After he manages to re-sort his emotions and catch some of his breath, Zitao glances back over past the doorway. His hands brace themselves shakily on the wall as he notices the president slowly getting to his feet, as if saying goodbye, and his eyes widen. Oh shit, oh _shit._

Zitao turns briskly on his heel and attempts to run away on quiet feet, having to place each and every step on his toes, yet he only manages to make it three-quarters of the way to his mother’s room when he hears the familiar dull clicking of the president’s shoes on the polished floor behind him, followed by a “Hey, wait!”

He skids to a stop, nearly falling over as he whips his head around to look behind himself. The president is staring straight at him just outside the doorway, a hand slightly extended out toward him as though to reach him, and Zitao’s eyes widen as the president begins to walk closer. Oh no, oh no, oh _no, oh no_. What if he knows that it’s him?

Zitao has to avert his eyes as the president approaches him, closing the prolonged gap between them, and the familiar scent of the president’s musky cologne washes over him, signifying his presence. “Are you lost?” The president asks, and Zitao’s heart thumps noisily against his ribs. Cautiously, Zitao trails his eyes upward to meet the president’s gaze. The aura in those dark brown eyes is so uncharacteristic, closely resembling the look the president had given him the other day when he’d handed him his paycheck early - gentle, unbridled, and unguarded. The president’s walls are down, his raw soul on display in a place like this, and Zitao finds himself overwhelmed to a point where it’s intrinsically difficult to breathe. Unable to, and merely terrified to speak, Zitao shakes his head.

Eyebrows stressing, the president looks down at the boy in the mask. “Do you need help getting to your room? I could escort you.”

Zitao blinks a few times; the president really thinks that he is a patient here - maybe it’s the mask that gives him a fragile vibe. Unsure if this is actually happening and if this is actually the president he is face to face with, merely inches away from each other, he shakes his head once more.

“Oh,” the president comments softly, gruffly, in that characteristically deep tone of his. “Well, please be careful. The floors can be slippery in here, and it would be unwise to run. You might get hurt.”

Wordless, Zitao nods, brain working on autonomy. With tightly-pressed lips, the president gives him a curt nod and bids him adieu, before breezing past him and continuing to walk down the hallway, leaving Zitao breathless in his path as he watches the president head out the front double-doors and into the parking lot.

As he lets out a long, shaky breath that he’d held in for far too long, Zitao finds himself unable to wrap his mind around just what had happened. There’s no way the president just spoke to him as though speaking to a loved one or to a young child, someone in need of being cared for when the president has not normally been known to show care toward others. Had that really happened just now, or had he simply imagined it all?

No, there’s no way Zitao just imagined catching the scent of the president’s cologne, of all things. It’s very standard to him, something slightly musky and rich and elegant, something bewitching and expensive, and Zitao isn’t sure he has ever smelled it on another person’s self in his entire life. There’s no way he would mistake that scent for anybody else, not even if he had been hallucinating, and although of course tired, Zitao knows he has not gotten too little of sleep to hallucinate.

Despite being shaken up and unable to get those eyes out of his mind, looking at him with so much sorrow in them and so much respect, Zitao continues on his way back to his mother’s room.

Although unsure of how much time has actually passed, Zitao safely assumes it’s been a hefty couple of minutes, as Luhan has set the empty plate aside on his mother’s bedside nightstand, having rested the used cutlery in the dip, and his mother greets him happily when he enters. Comfortable around those he knows, Zitao pulls the loops of his mask from around his ears and disposes of it in the portable bin.

“So?” Luhan asks him with a shifty smile as Zitao settles onto a flat, unused spot on his mother’s bed. “How did it go?”

Sighing, he shrugs his shoulders. “He wasn’t there.”

“Oh?” His mother coos curiously between them, wanting to be let in on this secret that only they know. “Who wasn’t where?”

“Tao went to look for his boyfriend,” Luhan tells her, and shocked and taken off guard, Zitao reaches out across the space between them and smacks him hard on the shoulder. “ _Ow_!” Luhan whines. “Don’t hit me!”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Zitao argues. “Don’t tell her lies, she’s too old for that.”

As Luhan whines pathetically to himself and nurses the sore spot on his shoulder, Zitao’s mother tisks disapprovingly and slaps Luhan with less force on the meat of his thigh. “Don’t be telling lies about my Tao-ah,” she chastises him. “It takes a lot for Tao to get a boyfriend, you know!”

“Why is everybody hitting me today?” Luhan whines. “This is abuse, I tell you - _abuse_!”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

As a congratulatory gift for Zitao’s ability to have pulled off the illusion for this long, Luhan awards him with a surprise-but-not-so-surprising grocery store trip, where Luhan spent nearly two-hundred dollars on Zitao’s very favorite drinks and snacks to fill his refrigerator as well as his pantry so Zitao no longer has to eat out every day and purchase every single meal.

“I tried to do my best to remember the diet you told me about last week,” his best friend comments to him as he stocks his refrigerator full of the cold produce, as Zitao watches from his seat at the island and rests his chin in his palm, eyebrows curved in amusement, “but I think I might have forgotten about a few things, so I got you plenty of vegetables and fruits, and I also got some of your favorite snacks for when you’re feeling _extra_ gluttonous - they’re all the way in the back so you can resist some temptation to eat them all, especially the cheeses.”

“How do you even remember which cheeses are my favorite?” Zitao asks playfully. “When was the last time I ever bought cheese around you?”

“Hey,” Luhan calls out with a pointed finger as he turns back to face him, knelt down on the minuscule surface space of Zitao’s kitchen floor with shopping bags strewn around him, both empty and full. “You would be surprised what your mother and I talk about when you’re not around.”

“Oh yeah?” Zitao hums unenthusiastically, looking down at his fingernails. “What do you guys talk about, then, other than my favorite cheeses?”

“Sometimes we talk about you,” his best friend shrugs as he places a carton of chocolate milk on Zitao’s upper shelf, followed by a large jar of apple butter on the door. “Other times we talk about your admiration for expensive cheese and greek yogurt, which is on the middle shelf above the produce drawers, by the way. Oh, and there are also those rare times we talk about your photography and your work, and your mother always has so much to say about how proud of you she is.”

Grateful, Zitao finds himself smiling. “That sounds like my mother, alright,” he confirms, and his best friend chuckles down in his spot on the floor. “You don’t, um… you don’t tell her anything about what exactly it is that I do at work, right?”

“Of course not,” Luhan reassures him confidently. “I haven’t shown her any of your photos, either. I figure if you ever decide you are comfortable enough to reveal that to her, that you will show her the proof yourself, and it’s not really my place to do it for you.”

“Thank you,” Zitao sighs. “I still don’t know how I’m going to tell her. I think I’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Don’t rush yourself,” his best friend says as he stands from his spot and closes Zitao’s refrigerator up, and cleans up the mess of plastic bags he’d made. “Your mom is patient, and you know that. Sure, her time might be limited, but I don’t necessarily think she would be any less proud of you even if you didn’t get to tell her in time.”

Recollection of just how little time his mother likely has before Zitao has to finally say goodbye brings tears to his eyes, and he feels foolish for crying when this should be a happy moment - happily, he is thriving at work, has been secondhand given a second chance at live at the hands of his boss, and has managed to get his life slowly and slightly back on-track. He should be out celebrating and preparing himself for the more strenuous properties of work, such as practicing his walk and maybe even practicing his expressions in his bathroom mirror - yet he’s still worrying, as always, and he can’t seem to find the ability to stop.

“There you go,” Luhan says suddenly, and Zitao snaps out of his web of thinking as his best friend tosses away the handful of bags into Zitao’s under-sink bin. “Anything else you want from me, babe?” His best friend asks, and Zitao manages to swallow back the tears for now. “A dick sucking, maybe?”

Brows knitting downward, Zitao chokes out a forced laugh. “Eat my ass,” he responds, wondering at that moment just _where_ he found a best friend as suggestive as his. “Speaking of eating, I should probably pick something to eat. My coordinator had me restricted to four-hundred calories per meal, and no carbs.”

Smirking, then, his best friend moves forward to lean his elbows on the island countertop as he says, “Well, it’s a good thing I bought you more yogurt and cheese, then, isn’t it? I got you plain, chocolate-almond, and lime custard, and also I got you sliced gruyere, spiced emmental, and onion-chive cheddar. Feel free to indulge yourself in a yogurt-cheese dinner, there’s plenty.”

Nodding, Zitao grins at him as he hops off of his island stool. “Would you like to partake a share in my yogurt-cheese dinner, oh wise one?”

“Well,” Luhan responds chipperly as he dips into Zitao’s refrigerator once more for a tub of plain yogurt and a thin cellophane bag of sliced cheese, as well as two unsweetened bottled teas to share between them. “Only if you clear your personal schedule, my Lady, to so willingly partake in watching a movie with me as we indulge in our exquisite yogurt-cheese dinner.”

He laughs, openly and sweetly, as he dips his fingers swiftly into the unzipped bag to steal a slice of cheese as they step into Zitao’s living room and plop themselves down onto the sofa accordingly, shoulder to shoulder and mind to mind. “I guess I will have to move my seven-o-clock meeting to eight, so you have me all to yourself for an hour, _Monsieur_.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Having stayed up late last night drinking with his best friend, Zitao finds himself very tired the next morning before work, and he finds himself practically dragging his feet the length of his steps and unable to pay attention as he readies himself. By the time he makes his way out the door that morning, he has already scalded the side of his hand by accidentally pouring freshly-brewed coffee on it and hadn’t even thought to eat something before sliding into his car and heading out. Being this tired, he’s lucky he even remembered to put his extensions in, albeit sloppy and pulled back into a ponytail.

And although being exhausted and unable to stop yawning, Zitao manages to not crash his car by the time he pulls into the company parking lot. He’s going to have to stop drinking until nearly one in the morning because exhaustion-hangover combinations are not a favorite.

He covers his mouth and yawns into his palm as he steps into the air-conditioned foyer, his car keys in his hand with the lanyard strap tangled up in his fingers, and he autonomously heads over to the electronic bulletin board before heading to his studio to see if maybe, by any chance, he might be requested somewhere before Qian needs him.

It does successfully wake him up, however, when he notices a blinking exclamation point next to his company photo and his scripted name, flashing red and outlined in white, and he blinks several times to clear his vision so he can read properly. Is he wanted in the black-box this early?

Frowning, he wonders if perhaps it has something to do with the practice walk for the Shanghai show that Zitao had attended the other day and if maybe it might be a follow-up practice for the show. Excited and intrigued to know if the president hasn’t chosen to dispose of him yet, Zitao hurries to the black-box.

If he recalls correctly, the president had instructed him weeks ago during his interviews to only wear heels up to a certain height, being that Zitao is already so tall, and he’s had several weeks to think about why his performance may not be up to the standard it could be and how he could improve it, and Zitao had internally monologued this morning about how each time he’s stumbled while walking, it had been while wearing high heels. So, in an effort to prove himself and present a satisfactory performance, Zitao had worn flat-soled sneakers that day. Surely the president must be somewhat impressed with Zitao’s gusto toward improving himself, right?

Excitedly, he pushes past the double-doors and adjusts his shoulder bag as he once more becomes familiar with the brightly-lit black-box and the crowd of women that once again linger down at the foot of the stage, some having seated themselves on the edge as they chat to each other and others standing to speak with the president, with a select few others sitting in the wing seats. As he continues to glance around, he notices Minseo sat on the edge of the stage with her legs criss-cross and her long black hair fallen before her, as she smiles and talks to a girl sitting adjacent to her, her hands loosely mimicking the actions of her words. Not wanting to disturb her because of course, Minseo has _other_ friends rather than simply just him, he decides not to call out for her as he approaches the president.

“Mr. Wu,” he calls out with a smile between his cheeks, and the muscles in the president’s neck cord as he startles slightly and turns around to the trajectory of the voice. “I’m here.”

He expects a eulogistic _good morning, Miss Huang_ , somewhat stereotypical of the president simply with more emotion added in Zitao’s own mind - yet all he gets is a discontented frown, almost bothered by something, the man’s eyebrows stressing downward and the muscles in his jaw tensing as his gaze hardens when he says, “You’re late.”

Blinking, Zitao’s head whips around briefly to glance at the massive wall-clock above the doors; how is he four minutes late? He hadn’t even noticed he was running late whatsoever. “I’m so sorry,” he blurts out as he faces the man again, his eyes glossier than before. He’s never been late before, and he knows the president does not sit well with tardiness. “I hadn’t even realized - ”

“Your outfit,” the president interrupts him once more, “is atrocious, as well.”

Lips parting as the statement begins to sink into his skin, Zitao’s heart cracks. “Excuse me?” He asks softly, quietly, unsurely.

Brazenly, the president’s jaw raises as he inhales a breath through the nose, his chest broadening. “I thought that I had told you, Miss Huang, that pastel blues and purples did not work well on your skin tone.”

Confused, Zitao glances down. Had he not paid attention this morning when dressing himself to have not noticed that he put on blue-jeans and a periwinkle-mauve sweater? He remembers very well how displeased the president had been when Zitao had worn that baby blue blouse for his follow-up interview, but he must have been too tired this morning to have remembered that he was to follow a strict color palette. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes sincerely. “It slipped my mind this morning, but it won’t happen again, I swear.”

“Thin ice, Miss Huang,” the president reminds him with rigidity in his voice. “Your incompetence and your relentless apologizing will have you treading on thin ice.”

Zitao swallows and bows his head in a nod, remembering that he was additionally told to stop apologizing for little things. Whether that had been out of the president’s sheer lack of patience or because he genuinely wanted Zitao as a person to improve, he isn’t very sure, but he’s ashamed to know that he had forgotten the rules he had been so diligently given to follow.

As he yearns to be told it’s okay and that he just has to remember to try harder, the president strides away from him and drops the subject, leaving Zitao hanging without reassurance, as he loudly instructs all of the girls to gather on the stage for the practice, and it becomes disgustingly clear that everybody was waiting for him this whole time, and Zitao feels like crying out of embarrassment.

As he’s stepping on the stage, then, he feels something brush his arm and glances over to see Minseo having tapped him on the exposed arm with careful fingers, and as if sensing his inner turmoil, she wordlessly offers him a piteous smile to show her support for him, and it helps.

“Alright, ladies,” the president announces boldly as Zitao is reclaiming his spot behind the girl he had been placed behind during the last practice walk. “As you all may or may not know, the Shanghai show is being conducted this Friday evening, and I have booked the lot of you flight tickets to depart this Wednesday afternoon. On the day of the flight, you are not to report to work whatsoever, as I myself will not be here. Those who are not joining us in the Shanghai show will remain here under the direction of Vice President Zhang and Treasurer Im until we return to work that Monday. Understood?”

Zitao nods, chiming in with the monotony of understanding.

“And yes,” the president reiterates, “you are to report to work next Monday. Should you not choose to show, I will be forced to void your contract and depending on the number of strikes tallied against you, you may lose your job. Take this very seriously, ladies - this is not a vacation for you all to gallivant about and go off as you wish. This is a business trip, and while you may be allotted free time to explore the city to your desire, you are not to abuse this privilege as you have work to do. Am I clear?”

Swallowing, his lips tremble as his voice blends in with those around him. “Yes, Mr. Wu.”

Inhaling and folding his hands lavishly before him, the president concludes his speech before stepping off of the stage and taking a seat in the front row of the audience chairs, propping a leg handsomely up on his knee as the meat of his thigh flexes, and he readies a clipboard and a pen and begins to organize them all by name, reminding of their respective leading and following partners for memorization and organization purposes, and Zitao is grateful for how many times the president repeats himself, for he - clearly, judging by his outfit today - is not the greatest at remembering things if they are only said once.

“Miss Huang Yingtao,” he hears, and almost isn’t able to register it as the president’s voice, as he only once before heard the president speak his first name. Perking up, he glances over top of the shoulders of the girl in front of him to see what the president has called him for, and realizes that the man is simply reading down a list attached to his clipboard, his eyes trained on the paper as he waves his pen in a directory manner. “You are number seven, behind number six, Miss Lee Yooyoung and in front of number eight, Miss Yang Dasom.”

 _Number seven, in front of Dasom and behind Yooyoung_. Glancing from person to person as Yooyoung respectfully turns around to give him a small wave, and he, in turn, faces the other way to offer a wave to Dasom, Zitao prays that he will be able to remember their faces by the time the show rolls around.

As the president concludes introducing each model to their preliminary partners, Zitao blows out a shuddering breath as they are instructed to begin to walk, likely for the president to nitpick them one last time before the show. Then, as the space between him and Yooyoung begins to grow as she strides elegantly toward the front of the stage, very clearly experienced and plentifully so, Zitao presses his toes down and begins to walk.

He tries to keep his eyes forward and unfocused, doing his best to not dare look down at how calculatively the president may be staring at him as he reaches the front edge of the stage and stilling for just a moment before he turns on his heel and turns back around to follow Yooyoung from an elongated distance toward the back of the stage, the forefront line several inches to his left as they do just the opposite. Okay, no problem, he’s at least pretty sure he stuck that turn which means Mr. Wu must be at least a little bit proud of him - after all, he was told to practice in his own time.

They run through it three times - Zitao has to assume, that with no prior knowledge of how the company shows are conducted, that he will be walking more than once around - before the girl at the beginning of the line, presumably number one, whom Zitao cannot see from here, stops at the front of the stage, and the rest of them fall into place behind her with Zitao nervous and short of breath.

Standing from his seat, the president nods his head in a confirmatory manner as he attaches his pen to his clipboard before lowering it. “Good job, ladies. You all seem well-prepared for this show, although there are a select few whom I would like to have a word with in private, so I shall pull those few aside in just a moment. As you all know by now, we are only taking a maximum of four coordinators to the show, likely from Studio A as well as Studio G, which means getting yourselves ready to walk will span several hours. The day of departure, you will each be sent an email with very unequivocal instructions regarding each time for each arrival, be that at the hotel, the venue, et cetera. At the venue, we will have one practice walk-through, or a dress rehearsal, if you will. You all are to wear heeled shoes to the dress rehearsal and are to _be on time_ ,” the president reiterates harshly, voice loud and resonant, and Zitao licks over his bottom lip nervously as he realizes the words were for him. “Should you be even a minute late to the dress rehearsal, I will be forced to remove you from the show roster and you will not participate. Do I make myself clear?”

Anxious, Zitao finds himself voiceless as the girls around him hum out, “Yes, Mr. Wu.”

“Remember,” the president raises an instructional finger, his expression cold. “Do not come to work Wednesday. If you clock in on Wednesday, you will be expected by Vice President Zhang to complete your routine shift. Should you attempt to leave early without their permission, you will be written up accordingly as company policy, and should you attempt to ask for their permission, you will be promptly denied. Keep all of this in mind, ladies, and you may be dismissed. As you leave, however, I would like to speak to Miss Jeon and Miss Huang individually.”

As the girls file carefully down the stairs, Zitao finds himself gulping. Has he done something wrong? He knows that he wore purple today when he wasn’t supposed to, but that had been an honest mistake from sheer exhaustion and Zitao not having had enough time to organize his closet to make sure he properly follows his assigned color palette when dressing.

As the stage clears, however, he notices that the other girl to have been called is down on the theater floor, speaking privately with the president - isn’t that the girl who, just last week, had tried to get him in trouble at practice? What could the president be speaking to her about, he wonders? Albeit curious, Zitao thinks it is disrespectful to unjustly eavesdrop, and he patiently waits his turn by the edge of the stage, his hands folded delicately by his groin and his heart pounding in his chest.

“Miss Huang,” he hears down below, and he jumps, his tied hair bouncing, as the president signals him to come down with a beckoning twitch of his fingers. Frightened, Zitao carefully kneels down to step off of the stage.

“Yes?” He asks in a shy voice, breaking halfway through as the president’s dark, sharp eyes practically bore right through his skin.

“Good work today, Miss Huang,” the man tells him stoically, and Zitao’s eyes widen slightly at the unexpected compliment. “Remember, toes down, always keep your toes down. And another thing - do not wear flat shoes to practice. You walk in _heels_ , Miss Huang, no matter how tall you are.”

Taken aback, Zitao forces himself to nod to slice through the awkward air. “Yes, Mr. Wu, it won’t happen again.”

“Make good on your word for once, Miss Huang,” the president warns him, “for each and every time you have promised to change, your faults have recurred.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Wu,” he bows in respect. “I will also remember not to wear blue or purple again, I’m so sorry.”

“You cannot make mistakes in a live show, Miss Huang,” he is reminded, the man’s voice deep and fluid yet soft and patient, and Zitao can’t believe that he could be hearing what sounds like - _compassion?_ “As a renowned couturier, I do have a reputation to uphold, both my own as well as that which belongs to my brand. When my advocates make mistakes publicly, it damages both reputations that I am responsible for perpetuating. Respectfully, Miss Huang, you do tend to act carelessly when involved in matters regarding others around you, and while I do have faith in you and your work and your presence that you may make the adjustments necessary to perform sufficiently, this show is not to be taken lightly by any means, and I will, if need be, remove you from this department and place you in Rec for you to learn how to perform properly. Am I making myself clear, Miss Huang?”

“Very clear, sir,” Zitao nods, a grateful smile plastered across his face, for he knows that he has struggled greatly adjusting from absolutely no experience to the highest level of experience required, and the president is no stranger to that knowledge, either. Having held Zitao to this standard this quickly, only having been just under a month since he had started at the firm, should be impossible when the president is often talked about regarding having impossible standards overall, but Zitao is not one to back down from a challenge if absolutely necessary. If it saves his mother’s life, Zitao will try his absolute hardest to learn how to be as talented, if not more so than the girls who reside in the department right now.

Lips pressed tightly together into something that is not a grin nor a frown, the president gives him a curt nod. “Do not let me down, Miss Huang. This is your chance to prove that you deserve a spot in this department.”

It does not at all go unnoticed how the president’s tone has dropped now that they are alone in the theater, something much less absinthial and perhaps just a _smidge_ empathetic, and Zitao is determined to prove to him that he deserves the money that he makes, whether experienced or not. He has tried far too hard to get here to fail now.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
On Wednesday morning, Zitao gets to sleep in past his normal alarm and feels practically euphoric when he wakes sheer hours later and stretches, limbs cracking as the haze of sleep begins to dissipate, and he feels much more alive than he has in the last week.

He’d told his mother Monday evening that he was going to leave town for almost a week and would return Sunday afternoon, and Luhan had very devoutly promised to take good care of her while Zitao was gone. His mother, although Zitao somehow expected her to be upset that she would not see her son for five days, acted as though he couldn’t have been leaving for more than several hours, and Zitao had pouted childishly as Luhan laughed at his mother’s apathy.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me for so long,” Luhan crows dramatically, theatrically, as he sees Zitao off at the terminal, having helped him dress in something pretty and girly to accommodate Shanghai’s warmer weather, merely a flouncing blouse that exposes slivers of Zitao’s toned abdomen and cuffed denim shorts that round out his hips, hoping to conceal the straight-lined masculinity in his frame. Luhan had chosen lemon-yellow, of all colors, as it was simply a gorgeously bright, sunny day, and with Zitao not being required to go to the firm today, his best friend found it fitting to exercise the use of clothes he’d purchased for Zitao outside of pencil skirts and button-up blouses. “Oh, what am I going to do without my beautiful girlfriend? Oh, my _heart_.”

Laughing as his face scrunches in disbelief, Zitao shakes his head and pats him dramatically on the back as his hair bounces around his shoulders, long and curled at the tips to add life to the strands. “Oh, if only there was a solution - perhaps a dating website, or maybe even this thing called _waiting_.”

“Shut the fuck up, you,” Luhan laughs, cleanly-dressed for once and lightly perfumed with his favorite cologne, just as floral and masculine as Zitao knows it to be. “Got all your makeup packed?”

Glancing down at his rolling carry-on held handle-first in his right palm, Zitao nods with a grin of excitement. “Yep, I remembered my anxiety meds and all.”

“Cell phone charger?” Luhan asks skeptically, irises dark. “You always forget your cell phone charger.”

Zitao laughs, “Okay, well, I have it this time. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to call both you and mom when I arrive. What time will you be getting to the hospital?”

Casually, his friend shrugs, “I don’t have a shift today, so I can head over there immediately. Spend the evening with your mom, maybe watch a couple movies. What time do you think you’ll get to the hotel?”

“Sometime this evening for sure,” he reassures him. “Maybe before nine? I want to do it before mom goes to sleep.”

“Tao,” his friend laughs. “If your mom knows she’s expecting a phone call, believe me, she’ll force herself to stay awake as long as it takes. She’ll refuse her medication if that’s what it takes. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets her morphine, too. I’ll take care of her, you don’t have to worry about anything.”

Sighing softly, Zitao offers him a soft, worried smile. “I know you will. I’m just… scared.”

“She’ll be there, Tao,” the blonde reassures him. “I’ll make sure of it. I won’t let the universe take her before you come back - I’ll fuckin’ _fight_ it if I have to, throw hands if I need to.”

The image of the joke plastered in his mind makes him laugh, and Luhan’s comforting touch lingers on his exposed shoulder. “Promise?” He asks, his glossed lips sparkling as he smiles weakly. “I hear the universe can be pretty hard to take down in a fight, what with all of those black holes and supernovas.”

“I promise,” his best friend nods. “I’ll be welcoming you back to the city with my prize belt to prove it.”

“ _Yingtao_!” He hears somewhere behind him, and Luhan glances over the boy’s shoulder as Zitao turns back to see who had called his name. Having been a few minutes later than most, Minseo is waving at him with her boarding pass in hand as she drags her rolling carry-on alongside her, an ecstatic grin on her face. Happy to see his friend, Zitao waves back as Minseo approaches him and adjusts the strap of his carry-on as she stops. “Oh - who’s this?” She asks, pointing to Zitao’s best friend, whom, narcissistically, smooths a hand back over his styled hair as he’s addressed.

“Oh, this Luhan,” Zitao responds. “Luhan, this is Minseo from work.”

Cheesy and vain, Luhan reaches out delicately for Minseo’s hand as though princely, and Zitao audibly gags as his best friend places a precious little kiss on the girl’s knuckles. “A pleasure to meet you, Minseo from work,” Luhan smiles as the girl blushes, covering her mouth as she silently laughs. “I’ve heard a lot about you - Yingtao truly admires you.”

“Yingtao,” Minseo smiles at him. “Is this your boyfriend?”

Grossed out, Zitao curls up his lips and sticks out his tongue. “No, we’re best friends from high school.”

“I,” Luhan pompously splays his fingers along his upper chest, schmoozy and sickly-sweet, “am Yingtao’s boyfriend when convenient, as she is not seeing anyone at the moment and is not actively looking. I guess you could call me… a _rent-a-boyfriend._ Available with four weeks’ notice, starting at six-twenty-five an hour.”

Taken off-guard by the man’s joke, Minseo laughs openly with curved eyebrows and pinked lips, her sundress flouncing around her knees as her laughter causes her body to slightly sway, her eyes slitting. “Yingtao,” she giggles. “You have such funny friends.”

Zitao scoffs, crossing his arms over his fake bosom as he says, “Yeah, but he can get pretty fucking annoying sometimes when he’s not being funny. That cheesy gag? That’s him every day.”

“You know you love me,” Luhan smirks at him and blows him a kiss, which makes Zitao roll his eyes and makes Minseo grin impishly. “Keep her safe, Minseo, will you? She’s a little shit and she attracts a lot of eyes - trust me, she doesn’t want any of them. Will you take over as rent-a-girlfriend for me while you girls are in Shanghai?”

Sighing, Zitao rolls his eyes and uncrosses his arms, resting a hand on his hip as he settles his tongue in his cheek. Will Luhan ever _not_ embarrass him in front of people Zitao is trying to impress? Nevertheless, Minseo nods. “Sure,” she smiles. “I’m already bisexual, so this should be a piece of cake. Is that okay with you, Yingtao?”

Zitao glances over at her, and although not attracted to women in any way, he doesn’t find the idea to pretend to date Minseo to keep himself out of the gazes of strange men necessarily unattractive. Smirking, he nods. “I usually only need it when I go out to restaurants or out drinking,” he tells her. “I’ll let you know when I need your services, Minseo.”

Their individual attention is shattered as their boarding is called over the loudspeaker, and Zitao watches as some of the other women from work who have made themselves comfortable in the waiting chairs stand with their luggage in-hand and head over to their respective gate. Turning back, Zitao pulls on the strap from his carry-on again as Minseo does the same. “Gotta go,” he presses his lips together and nods, and his best friend sucks in a breath and offers him a supportive smile. “I’ll miss you, Han.”

“Be safe,” Luhan leans in for a quick hug, patting Zitao platonically on the upper back before pulling away. “Keep her safe, Minseo, I mean it! She’s a real piece of work!”

Laughing, Minseo nods as she lifts a hand to wave him off. “Understood. It was nice meeting you!”

As Luhan turns away to pass back through the terminal to head back to security, Zitao feels something brush his arm and looks back over to see Minseo winding her arm around his and linking their elbows together, and Zitao finds himself flushing. “Come on,” she smiles. “Don’t wanna be late for the plane!”

Nodding, Zitao switches the hand he uses to hold his carry-on as they head toward the gate. Is this what having girlfriends feels like?

As they enter the plane, Zitao finds out that the flight the president had booked for the selected models had not only contained only first-class seats but had been entirely booked out, leaving them with plentiful room to sit wherever they pleased and with whomever they pleased.

The aisle is wide and roomy, each row of seats a self-facing pair of three-seaters, and Zitao had been admiring the large, round windows on each side when he feels Minseo tug on his arm. “Yingtao, sit with me,” she requests as she stops him, motioning toward a three-seater in the middle, and Zitao nods as he turns to face the seats and slides his bag strap from his shoulder. He hadn’t necessarily been expecting to sit alone nor with strangers, but it’s absolutely relieving to have Minseo show that she cares about her friends and take the initiative to claim him a seat.

Easily, he sets his carry-on bag up in the overhead shelf, yet can’t help but feel poorly when he watches Minseo struggle to lift her mini-suitcase, too heavy and too full for a girl of her strength. Wordlessly, he reaches out for her luggage and mostly-effortlessly lifts it up and slides it onto the shelf. “Whoa,” she comments breathily, awed. “I had a lot of stuff in there, I even had two laptops and some food! How are you so strong, Yingtao?”

Blinking as he lowers his arms, the hem of his blouse lowering from where it had exposed his abdomen in the stretch, he shrugs and purses his lips. “I don’t know,” he admits sincerely. “I mean, I used to take martial arts and gymnastics in school, so maybe that’s how? Besides, it wasn’t _that_ heavy.”

“Wow,” Minseo smiles as she slinks into the row of seats and sits by the window, giving Zitao the choice of the middle seat and the aisle seat for personal space. “You’re so cool, Yingtao.”

“You took martial arts?” He hears off to his left, and glances over to see who is speaking to him. It’s that girl from the walk, the one who stands behind him - Dasom, he realizes, and he thanks himself for having somewhat decent of memory. She’s diagonal to him, in a seat across the aisle and one row ahead, with one arm propped up on the neck of the seat with her cheek leaned into her palm as though bored, her long braids falling over the edge of the seat where she’s sat in it backward. “Is that like, beating people up?”

“I mean,” he shrugs as he leans back into his seat, laying his arms on his own armrests. There’s a reason he chose the aisle after Minseo chose the window because choosing who gets the armrest is one of the most aggravating parts of attending flights, “not exactly. It’s for self-defense, and I also got to take core-strengthening courses because martial arts deals a lot with stances and core alignment, you know?”

“That’s actually kind of cool,” Dasom smiles, and Zitao notices that her two front teeth are longer than the others, and he finds it both pretty and adorably unique. He’s always wanted to have teeth shaped like that. “How much can you lift?”

He purses his lips, his cheeks puffing out very slightly. “Martial arts doesn’t really act like weight training, so I guess maybe a hundred pounds? I don’t think I’ve ever lifted more than a hundred.”

“Shit,” Dasom laughs. “I can only lift forty-five.”

“I can lift thirty,” Minseo pipes up beside him, and Zitao’s chest blooms in pride that there is finally something that makes him unique from the bunch - he’s the strongest girl they know, and the notion actually makes him very proud of himself.

As the ride commences and they all sit in their seats, Zitao discovers that Minseo very much enjoys the uncommon scenery. As they fly above the clouds, he spots her on several occasions opening her cell phone’s camera application to take pictures from outside the clear windows, cooing silently to herself at the clarity of the sky and the saturation of the blueness, and Zitao smiles as he turns his eyes back to his book. She’s such a sweet girl, and he internally wishes her lots of luck with finding a partner who doesn’t judge her for being bisexual.

Dasom, on the other hand, Zitao discovers is quite a social butterfly - perhaps not the friendliest of women he’s ever met, but she doesn’t appear to have any deception in her attitude or her words and treats everyone around her equally, as Zitao glances up every now and then when Dasom chats with her friends around her. She stands occasionally from her seat to pass the girls in the seat facing hers some snacks, and Zitao makes out the shape of a protein bar when the movement catches his eye. He wonders if they are allowed to snack freely, and what kind of diet they must have been put on if any at all.

As he just passes chapter six in his novel, he slides the bookmark into the spine and sets the book aside. He’s been feeling a little bit peckish ever since a few minutes ago, and also feel like he might need to use the bathroom. Speaking of which, where is the bathroom?

He sits straight in his seat, craning his neck around to look for where the bathroom might be. Before him at the front end of the cabin is a simple curtain, as though it may lead to either a cockpit or a private wing, and behind him in the rear end of the cabin is a set of doors, ones that just beyond them, likely lies a restroom. Beside him, Minseo has fallen silently asleep, her head resting gently against the window as she dozes, and Zitao takes back his intention to tell her where he’s going as he stands from his seat, bringing his cell phone with him just in case anyone on this plane might be that level of shifty.

As he steps into the aisle, however, the curtain in the front end of the cabin slides open, and the president steps forward with sharpened, trained eyes, as though looking for someone. As he stares for just a moment, however, his eyes soften just slightly as his sight settles on Zitao stood in the aisle. “Miss Huang,” he calls out, and all of the girls in Dasom’s general vicinity silence their chatter as they look collectively at the president, then back at Zitao. “I need to borrow you for a moment.”

Eyes wide and hunger forgotten, Zitao nods, twiddling his thumbs nervously as he follows the president into his private cabin, as the man genially holds the curtain open for him, gentlemanly and kind, yet Zitao finds his throat dry and his words non-existent.

As he steps into the private cabin, Zitao realizes there is nobody else inside, and his heart begins to race as the president strides in front of him before reaching for his own carry-on on one of the padded seats, elongated as though couches in quads with centering tables, and Zitao can practically smell how expensive this cabin must have been. As the president returns with his bag, however, Zitao finds himself unable to make any sort of direct eye contact as his cheeks heat and his pulse hammers against his ribs. The man is dressed much more casually than Zitao has ever seen, even at the hospital where Zitao would have expected him to have been out of his work suit. He’s dressed in a white crisp blouse, buttonless and self-tailored with his own initials embroidered into the upper breast, with black slacks and a golden watch resting on his dominant wrist, hair merely combed back and sprayed into place rather than sheened with gel as Zitao is used to. The newness takes him completely off-guard and he finds himself trembling over how sexy he suddenly finds the man to be.

Swallowing around a cottony throat, Zitao struggles to formulate words. “Sir?” He asks quietly, shyly, shakily. “What did you need me for?”

The president has left him to stand awkwardly by himself as he rifles through his carry-on and Zitao watches as he lifts a metal-cased tape measure followed by his company briefcase, from which he produces a manila folder and a black marker. “I just got off of the phone with Qian,” he tells Zitao, looking at him directly with those rigid brown eyes that seem to take Zitao’s breath away. “She has informed me that she forgot to do your monthly measurements before the flight, so I have informed her that I will measure you myself.”

This time, Zitao’s eyes go so wide he feels as though they may fall right out of his head. Mr. Wu is going to measure him? With… a tape measure and his hands? “Sir?” He repeats unsurely.

The president sets down the folder and the marker as he approaches Zitao with the tape measure in hand, and as he stops mere inches from him, the scent of his cologne washes over Zitao’s body, spicy and dark. “Do not worry, Miss Huang, I have been doing this for far too long to not be able to treat something like this professionally. I simply need to measure your body to track the progress of your figure management, and then you may return to your cabin for the remainder of the flight.”

Zitao swallows as the man looms over him and slides the tick out of the measure, unsure if he may faint in the man’s wake. “Sir, I,” he says nervously, “I haven’t had any measurements taken. I’ve… not been measured, yet.”

Then, the president’s eyes soften - just a bit, but Zitao watches as the darkness slightly fades. Zitao’s eyes hold anxiety, worry, and inexperience, and the president presses his lips together in understanding. “I will go slowly,” the man reassures him with a careful nod. “Alright?”

Nervous, Zitao blows out a reassuring breath and nods in permission. It’s simply taking his measurements, so why does this feel so intimate?

The president pulls along the length of the tape measure with broad hands as he says, “Arms up,” and obediently, Zitao raises his arms. “I have to measure your bust first,” the president tells him as he leans forward to wrap the tape measure around Zitao’s upper chest, and he can’t help but notice that the man is not tightening the measure around him whatsoever, as though being cautious, and he gulps nervously as the man’s hands close the ends of the measure in front of his nipples. “Good,” the president mutters as he slides the tape back into the holder and moves off to the side to record the measurement into the top sheet just inside the folder. “Next is your rib cage for your underbust.”

The worst comes when the president leans down just slightly as he wraps the length of the tape around Zitao’s hips to measure his rear, and he can’t help but suck in a breath in worry that the president might notice something that shouldn’t be there. When the man stands back up to mark it off on the paper, however, Zitao feels slightly more relieved.

Just the same, the man is careful and slow, alerting Zitao of every step that he makes, yet Zitao finds himself trembling and his apprehension does not go unnoticed when the president sinks elegantly to one knee before him, glancing up at him with a careful stare. “I am going to measure the circumference of your upper and lower legs, Miss Huang, so I will need you to spread them slightly.”

Sinking his teeth into his lower lip, Zitao nods and spreads his stance to shoulder-width.

The man is scrupulous as he wraps the tape around the thick of one of Zitao’s thighs, the tape very gently skirting against his skin indicative of how gentle the man is being, and Zitao feels as though he may die when the tape slithers against his skin as it’s pulled carefully back. “Miss Huang,” the president says from his knelt position, and Zitao glances down. “Could I possibly ask you a conscientious question regarding your exercise regimen?”

Eyebrows tensing very slightly, Zitao nods, unsure of where this is going.

As the president measures his calf, however, he begins to speak as he trains his eyes on the markings along the tape. “What exercises, exactly, if any at all, do you routinely perform?”

When he watches the man pull the tape back and smoothly stand from the floor, his pants free of dust and his polished shoes completely unscathed, he finds the confidence again to speak. “I, um - I briefly forayed into step-squats when I did gymnastics in high school, and I still manage to squeeze a few in here and there. But - but I could stop them if you want me to.”

Then - glancing back at Zitao briefly with tensed lips as he places the cap back on the marker and closes the folder - the president coughs, as though awkwardly, and Zitao’s eyes widen a little. “No need,” the man says, his deep voice uncharacteristically breathless. “They are building very nice muscle. If you would like a piece of conscientious advice, I would suggest backward leg-lifts.” The man steps away, then, lifting his cell phone from his trouser pocket to look at it, as though to read a new message or to look through his notes, before he turns the screen off and places the phone back in his pocket as he meets Zitao’s glassy eyes and says, “Shit, Qian has also requested that I measure your neck circumference.”

As he watches the man lift the tape measure once more, Zitao swallows at the thought of the man’s fingertips tracing the cords of his throat, stroking delicately up the sensitive skin. Nervously, he nods. “Okay,” he squeaks out, and it is only then that the man nods in understanding, confirming the permission he has been given before he instructs Zitao to lift his hair and the tape is wrapped very carefully around his throat.

The man’s fingers press the ends of the tape together at the nape of his neck, and Zitao finds himself unable to breathe as he makes the mistake of looking upward and meeting the man’s eyes, and the look in those eyes steals the breath right out of his lungs. The man’s eyes are glazed, hazy, slightly-darkened and Zitao finds them enrapturing him and forbidding him from escaping. Shakily, he lets out a trembling breath and hears the man inhale as his chest rises, and he realizes that they are now close enough to literally be sharing one another’s breath, and his heartbeat skips.

Then the tape slides away from his skin, and Zitao snaps himself out of the haze.

“I apologize for having to do all of this here,” the president tells him gently, tone structured yet tender, and Zitao really wishes the man didn’t show compassion toward him because it’s beginning to tug at the cords of Zitao’s heart. “Each month, Qian will measure you to track your progress with your weight loss and muscle gain. I understand why you seem apprehensive; I apologize greatly on your behalf.”

Clearing his throat slightly as the president packs his carry-on up, Zitao shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he reassures him softly. “I’ve just… never done this before.”

Standing smoothly, then, with the strap of his bag laid attractively over his shoulder, the president meets his eye with a stoic gaze. “Based off of the shift in your measurements as compared to your application, I will see to it that you are to be placed on a protein-heavy diet to maintain the weight in your legs when the trip concludes and when you return to your studio Monday morning, Qian will have been informed. From then on, you are allowed to begin to focus less on worrying about other parts of your body, and I would recommend that you focus on maintaining the mass in your thighs.”

His expression placifies as the statement sticks to his skin - what, exactly, does that mean? “Mr. Wu,” he finds himself saying quietly, barely above a whisper, and the man glances at him out of the corners of his eyes, his face characteristically rigid. “Do you… do you really think my thighs look nice?”

Then, the president shifts his eyes away for a moment as though caught, before visibly pressing his lips together as he inhales through his nose and slides his free hand into his trouser pocket. “Return to your cabin, Miss Huang.”

Anxious, Zitao’s tongue peeks out to lick over his bottom lip as he nods, bows in respect, and turns on his heel with a palm pressed to burning cheeks as the curtain brushes against his exposed calves. Had he really imagined the president saying that? There’s no way he can’t be asleep right now, Zitao knows this. There’s no way the president intimately complimented the shape and structure of his legs and the care put into them. There’s no way.

When he returns to his seat with pinked cheeks, however, Minseo is awake this time and is brushing her hair with a gold-embellished white comb. “Oh - Yingtao,” she coos in surprise, a smile creeping across her lips as she soaks up the sight of Zitao having returned. “They said the president called you over. Did you get in trouble?”

Sinking into his seat, Zitao tries not to feel the weight of all of the eyes on him as he shakes his head and looks specifically at his friend. “No, we were talking about the diet I’m on. It’s changing a little bit after the trip. Coordinator Qian’s orders.”

“Oh,” she sighs, smiling gently as she begins to play around with her cell phone. “That’s good, then.”

Nevertheless, Zitao finds himself unable to catch his breath during the entire remainder of the flight.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
They arrive at their designated hotel a little bit after dinnertime, Zitao and Minseo not having had a real meal and merely having snacked on protein bars and packaged chocolate on the plane, yet Zitao does not find himself necessarily hungry enough to have the desire to gorge himself on a full meal.

As he and Minseo head to the room designated to them, a keycard in his hand, he begins to grow curious about who else may be their roommates, if anybody, and if they will be friendly toward him or if they will be bitter the way Jessica had been the other day.

He lets the two of them into their hotel room with the keycard and hums in delight as the light automatically flickers on as he steps into the room, motion-sensitive and bright, and Minseo squeals in excitement as they gaze around the room. It is simply the largest hotel room Zitao thinks he has ever seen while still being simply a two-bed, a flat-screen television propped up on the wall by a bolted holster rack, complete with a massive walk-in closet the probable size of Zitao’s entire apartment, and beside the beds rests a chestnut boudoir with brassy black handles, and he wonders if this hotel is commonly used by fashion designers and their corresponding employees.

Setting his luggage off to the side at the foot of the massive king-length bed closest to the door, Zitao finds himself entranced by the large, slightly-frosted windows that look out onto the entire city, brightly-lit in the dimmed evening darkness and gigantic, and it absolutely takes Zitao’s breath away. “I never knew Shanghai was so big,” he admits in awe.

“You’ve never been?” Minseo asks him, grunting vividly as she hoists her luggage onto the second bed, the suitcases bouncing slightly on the spring of the mattress.

“No,” Zitao tells her without turning back to her, gazing out at the sparkling horizon. “I go sightseeing sometimes, and I drove through the west end of Shanghai one time, but I never really had the chance to admire the city, especially not at night.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Minseo smiles behind him, and Zitao can hear the curvature in her voice from it. “We went to Shanghai one other time, and we were on the other end of the city and it was just as spectacularly pretty as it is here. It’s got amazing street food, too. If you’ve never had soup dumplings, Yingtao, you’ve got to have them here, you will _die_.”

As Zitao hoists himself off of the window ledge to mimic Minseo and unpack his own luggage, finding it to be a smart idea to get a head start, there are several small knocks at the door before it’s being pushed open, and Minseo is cheering out in the wonder of who is there. Unused to sharing a room with so many women, Zitao remains quiet as to not judge the habitual behavior of typical women.

As he watches, then, two girls stride into the room with heavy suitcases thunking against their legs, and Zitao immediately recognizes both of them.

Minseo crushes both girls in a close hug as she bounces happily, before turning to Zitao with sparkles in her eyes. “Guys, this is Yingtao, our roommate. Yingtao, this is Amber, and this is Baekhee.”

Politely, Zitao nods and forces a smile as the girls look him up and down. Zitao realizes Baekhee must be the one with the curly brown hair and the freckles, the one who had helped him up in the hallway after his post-phone call breakdown. Amber, although not having seen her in nearly a month, still looks exactly the same as Zitao somewhat remembers from the required initiation.

“You’re Miss Huang, right?” Amber is the first one to speak, stepping forward bravely with a homely smile on your face as she extends a hand. Politely, Zitao accepts the handshake.

“Yeah,” he nods with an awkward smile. “Sorry, I, um… I don’t really know many people.”

“Oh, it’s you!” Baekhee pipes up suddenly, brown eyes wide in surprise. “You’re the one from the hallway by the bathrooms!”

Pressing his lips together, he nods once more. “Yes, sorry about that. I’m okay, truthfully.”

“Wait, what happened in what bathroom hallway where?” Minseo asks curiously, and Baekhee turns to her with sparkling eyes as she explains the story. When it concludes, however, Minseo takes in a gasp as her eyes turn sullen. “Yingtao, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come and talked to you and helped you back to the studio.”

“I’m fine,” he laughs a little, cheeks rosy as his hair tinkles down his chest, and he makes himself comfortable by sitting on the mattress as the girls stand around each other. “Really, I promise. It’s okay now.”

“You’re also the one that Jessica hates,” Baekhee points out with a well-manicured hand, nails painted in a glossed white. “Right? You’re the one she walked up to in Studio B?”

He nods, eyebrows knitting. “Were you there?”

“We both were,” Amber pipes up, her voice deeper than both girls, and Zitao wonders why that could be and what differs between female genetics to cause that. Though, he suspects it would be exactly the same as male genetics, as his voice is clearly very much higher than a voice like the president. “She fucking hates you. I think it’s really funny.”

He frowns, then, rouged lips pursing before he asks, “Why does she hate me, though? I never did anything to her. I don’t even think I said more than two words to her before she came up to me in the studio.”

“She’s jealous,” Baekhee responds without missing a beat, and Zitao watches as she steps over to take a seat opposite him on the bed covered in Minseo’s belongings. “And no, before you ask, it’s not because you are in Marketing. She hates you because of the way Mr. Wu always eyes you up when she’s around.”

Completely confused as to how this conversation has traversed so rapidly from introducing one another to immediate shit talking, he finds his head shaking in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” He asks them, laughing nervously. Despite the way the president had complimented him on the plane, he truly expects them to tell him that they’re joking, that they’re merely pulling on his coattails in order to play a prank and get his hopes up, yet - the look in Baekhee’s eyes hasn’t changed, and not even Minseo has laughed since.

“You haven’t noticed?” Baekhee asks rhetorically. “Especially at rehearsals, he’s always watching you specifically. Like at the practice walks, I stand behind you by a few people, and as each person came up to the front before turning he would glance at them quickly and jot down some notes about their performance, but every time you came up to the front of the stage he wouldn’t take his eyes off of you.”

Oh. He feels a pang of disappointment in himself run through his chest as he regrets having stared straight ahead during practice when he had several chances to see the president stare at him and likely avert his eyes to not be caught. Sighing, he regrets having been so headstrong especially having developed a newfound crush against his own will. “I don’t believe you,” he tries to laugh it off, smiling crookedly, but Baekhee shakes her head.

“No,” she tells him, and the expression on her face is flat, “it’s the truth - I’ve even seen it a few times, especially that one day in Studio B when you were doing your first company shoot after your initiation shoot, the president kept stealing glances at you. You know, the day the president was chatting with some girls over by the door while you were having pictures taken? Yeah, I was there, I was one of those girls. We were discussing a high-end shoot for the supermodels in Marketing and he kept looking away to stare at you.”

Zitao’s heartbeat has quickened through the progression of the conversation, as he attempts to swallow his pride and assure himself that they are lying and they’re merely teasing him even though the look in their eyes say otherwise. “What is the president’s relationship with Jessica?” He asks suddenly, practically blurting it out in a small voice, and it causes Amber to let out a choked-off laugh by his side.

“You really wanna know?” She asks him coolly, and it only intrigues him more, causing him to respond with a nod. “I mean, it’s really simple. They’re sex buddies. Not quite friends with benefits, because they’re not anywhere near being considered friends, but he lets her fuck him as much as she wants for raises and promotions. Why do you think she’s the highest-selling model in the entire firm?”

He frowns, not having known she was _that_ rich. “She is?”

“Of course she is,” Baekhee lets out a humorless, sarcastic chuckle, airy and light as her curly hair pours past her shoulders. “She practically sucks money right out of his dick like a straw. Also, why do you think she gets out of trouble so easily? No Jessica means no sex. It’s an added benefit to fucking your boss.”

He grimaces, wishing he didn’t have to get stuck in the middle of a situation this sticky. “That’s so biased,” he complains, somehow not able to wrap his mind around the possibility that someone could successfully earn additional rights through infidelity with their boss. Sure, Luhan jokes about it with him occasionally, but Zitao is not brave enough of a person to try to have sex with every person who employs him in the hopes that one of them will respond positively and not fire him immediately for sexual misconduct. “Is she angry about me being in the show on Friday?”

“Oh yeah,” Amber laughs. “She bitched about it the whole flight, just nonstop: _how come Yingtao gets to walk in the same show as me? She will never deserve to walk alongside me no longer how hard she works and tries_.”

“Jessica has been here a long time,” Minseo adds to the conversation. “It’s not like she right off the bat started having a sexual relationship with Mr. Wu. She started off in Rec just like the rest of us and was promoted after a year and a half, which is still kind of a short amount of time as compared to others who struggle for sometimes close to three and even four years and we have no luck.”

“She hates the fact that you get the same treatment completely for free,” Amber continues to elaborate, crossing arms over a broad chest, tomboyish and comfortable in a familiar way to him, “because she had to persuade him to engage in sex with her and you can sometimes tell that the president doesn’t enjoy the privileges that he gives her.”

“Isn’t that sexual assault?” He asks in a slightly strained voice. “Her having to persuade him for so long.”

“Oh, of course, it is,” Amber smiles bitterly. “Do you think Jessica gives a shit?”

He frowns at the statement, unhappy to know that she unfairly and problematically swindles her way around this job this way. In order to distract himself, he proposes that they all unpack their bags, and Minseo willingly moves her luggage over to the first bed to share it with Zitao, as Amber and Baekhee take the other bed.

The room falls into an awkward silence as Zitao begins unpacking his clothes and individually hangs each garment in the walk-in closet before he gathers a set of loungewear in his arms and announces that he’s going to change in the bathroom.

As he’s gone, however, Baekhee reaches over to nudge Minseo with her elbow, which startles the girl and causes her to jump in surprise. “Hey, you’re Yingtao’s friend, right? Would you happen to have any idea why Yingtao always changes in private spaces?”

Frowning, Minseo asks what she means.

“I mean, I saw Yingtao change in the shoe closet before a shoot one time,” Baekhee whispers, “and I’ve been in the studio with her several times since and I’ve never once seen her change out in the open. Do you know if she has a reason why?”

“Do you think maybe she had a secret pregnancy?” Amber asks quietly, lips curled into a smirk. You know, maybe she has a cesarean scar that she doesn’t like to show. Hyeri from four years ago had a secret pregnancy.”

“I think Yingtao is self-conscious, in all honesty,” Minseo shrugs. “I’ve never been around her when she changes and I’ve never asked why, but I have heard Miss Qian talking to Miss Ock in Studio B about Yingtao and her sensitivities about her body, like her dislike for being so flat-chested and her fear of her neck because of Jessica.”

Folding a blouse down the length of her chest, Baekhee smiles shiftily, then, as she sets the folded blouse onto a stack of her other shirts as she says, “You know that Mr. Wu would have fired anybody else for the same exact thing, right?”

Smirking, Amber hangs a set of her pants up on a hanger that she slides onto the upper bar in the boudoir. “Why do you think everyone is convinced that Yingtao and the president are having sex?”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
When Zitao comes out, much more comfortable than before with no plans to leave the hotel for the night, it already being dark out and him having no desire to explore tonight, he lays his used clothes in his emptied suitcase and plugs his phone charger into the wall outlet beside the bed. Minseo has sprawled herself across the bed as she chats away with Baekhee, and Amber has produced a corded iron to steam down a pair of trousers, and Zitao watches as she slides the iron along the fabric atop a foldable ironing board.

“Hey, Yingtao,” Baekhee calls out suddenly, and Zitao perks up at the mention of his name. “Minseo told us that you started off in Marketing right off the bat, right?”

Glancing over at Minseo for brief visual confirmation, he nods. “Yeah, it was a whole big scene at initiation and everybody got extremely angry at me for it, and I had no idea what to say to anybody because I didn’t know. I’ve literally only worked in this firm for a month tops. I’ve been busting my ass to try to make up the talent deficit between me and everyone else in Marketing. I even fucked up my first audition pretty badly and cried like a kid in front of the president and his treasurer and his vice, and somehow they still hired me.”

The girls fall silent after Zitao finishes speaking, and as seconds pass on by, he begins to suspect and assume that that’s all they wanted to know, and he turns his back once again as he opens his contact list with the idea to call his mother and let her know, now that he’s gotten settled in and adjusted to the hotel and his roommates for the weekend, that he in fact alive and safe.

However, Amber interrupts his plans as she says, “You know what that means, right?” and when Zitao looks back, he feels slightly nauseous as he sees her smiling, shifty and secretive. “That means Mr. Wu has a crush on Yingtao.”

Taken aback, Zitao turns once more to face her with wide eyes, jaw dropped. “What?” He asks her awkwardly, torn between laughing and crying. There’s no fucking way Mr. Wu has feelings for him, this time Zitao is _sure_ they’re absolutely blind and delusional. “No, he doesn’t. That’s not possible. That’s not a thing that just happens.”

“Yes, it is,” Amber corrects him matter-of-factly, passively, as though entirely unbothered by what it is that she is proposing, and Zitao has half a mind to ask her if she has any idea what exactly she’s talking about, “because it’s happened before.”

His phone falling lax in his hand, partially dropping onto the mattress below, he finds his mind blanking. “What are you talking about?”

Slowly, as though to prepare herself or to calm herself, Amber takes a deep inhale through the nose as she sits down on the edge of the bed and props herself up with her arms behind her, palms flat on the tucked comforter, as she lifts her chin in his direction very slightly. “I’ve been here a very long time, Yingtao. I grew up with the president - we were childhood best friends, and we’ve been friends ever since we were growing out of diapers. I know him extremely well, inside and out, and I know practically everything there is to know about him, including some secrets that he obviously wishes he could un-tell me. And I started working at the firm about, I’d say eleven years ago, soon after the company opened its doors. I started off modeling, but quickly decided I wasn’t enthralled in it and he promoted me to seamstress, so I actually make every single thing you and everybody else wears.”

“Do you really?” He asks, eyes slightly wide. “That’s so impressive, you’re so talented.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she accepts the compliments with a cheery laugh. “Anyway, I’ve been here long enough - much longer than Jessica, even - to know that the president did do this once before, and we as classic employees aren’t allowed to talk about it on work premises.”

“I know what it is,” Baekhee tells him softly. “And so does Minseo. The whole company knows, but Mr. Wu doesn’t know that we know. He thinks that his cabinet, plus Amber and Jessica and the coordinators, are the only people who know.”

“Can somebody tell me, please?” He asks in slight desperation, hungry to be let in on the secret.

“You can’t tell anybody, Yingtao,” Amber tells him with a flat seriousness to her voice. “Outside of the company, I mean, because there’s nobody else here to tell. You can’t tell anybody that knows Mr. Wu, or he will fire you. I’ve seen him do it loads of times when he caught the models gossiping.”

“I won’t,” he nods, suddenly excited, curling his legs beneath him criss-cross-applesauce. “I promise, my lips are sealed.”

After his promise, the girls all glance at each other, sharing looks from gaze to gaze, as though in a debate. Zitao feels a little bit awkward as silence stretches on, not even the monotony of the television present to help or even some low-volume music until Amber sighs and rolls her neck back as she glances up at the ceiling. “He hired this model very soon after the company opened,” she tells him in a low voice, and something about the clipped, slightly monotonous way she speaks tells him that this won’t be a laughing matter. “About ten years ago, if I’ve got my dates correct. She was just… the _friendliest_ woman you would ever meet. You would never see her without a smile, and every single day she would come to work excited to perform and excited to be photographed, and would wear the brightest colors any of us had ever seen, vivids and saturated pastels and glitter and ribbons, and everybody in Marketing said that she was the most beautiful woman you would ever meet. Everybody loved her - there wasn’t a single one of us who didn’t have some kind of appreciation for her, and none of us knew that she was secretly dating the president until their relationship had already been very well-established. They were so secretive, nobody ever even saw them in _public_ together - the second they walked out those doors at the end of the day, they were boss and employee.”

Blinking, Zitao finds his heart skipping a beat. “And then?” He asks, absorbed in the story and yearning for a continuation. “You’re using this much detail - that must mean they got found out _sometime_ before they broke up, or whatever.”

As though pained, Amber sucks in a sharp breath. “Well, they were caught having sex in Studio G by a Rec model, and back then, it wasn’t characteristic of him to have sex with his employees. None of us knew they were dating until then, so obviously the rumor that the two of them must have been an item outside of company property started floating around, and it was groundless for the longest time. By the time the rumor reached the president’s ears, though, the two of them were already engaged to be married.”

His eyes widen, pulse skittering. “Oh.”

“Then,” she elaborates with a struggling sigh, “one day, we stopped seeing her come to work, and we assumed that, hey, maybe the president wasn’t comfortable with rumors going around about them, so he either fired her or had her resign for privacy’s sake, you know?” Zitao pauses her speech by nodding, and with gradually darkening eyes that begin to creep him out, she continues, “Then, one day, we all got word that we were being laid off. No explanation, no negotiation, no care for how many girls cried at the president’s feet over losing their jobs. The company just… suddenly went into a long standstill, where not even the president was attending work because he was always at home, and being his best friend, he refused to even tell me what was wrong, and that’s how I knew it had to be something very serious. Took me too damn long of a time to get him to open his mouth, but when he did, he had tears in his eyes as he told me that… she had died in a train collision the day before. On the pre-anniversary of their engagement.”

His phone falls from his hand, slipping from the edge of the mattress and thudding softly onto the carpeted flooring, as tears immediately spring to his eyes and his heart tugs painfully in his chest. No, _no_ , he couldn’t have lost somebody like that, Zitao won’t allow it. “Who…?” He croaks out softly, struggling not to cry over the welfare of somebody completely unrelated to him. “Who was she?”

Amber doesn’t answer right away, having shifted her eyes away from them all as though the story physically hurts her to tell. When Zitao glances around, neither Baekhee nor Minseo are looking at him, either, merely staring at their hands in their respective laps. He begins to assume that nobody is going to tell him, that the story is going to be left off here before Amber whispers, “Wu Mochou.”

His eyebrows tense for a split-second at the name, not recognizing it at all. “Who…?” He repeats, and he watches as Amber faces him with eerily dark eyes, full of anguish and peril, as though self-hatred.

“At work,” she explains, “Mochou went by _Momo_.”

Then, it clicks. The print he had seen on the president’s desk - that… that had to be _her_ , that had to have been his soon-to-be wife. That explains why the president had gotten hostile when he had seen Zitao touching it - that was his _wife’s_ picture.

Suddenly, Zitao feels ill.

“She lived down in Guangzhou,” Baekhee continues the story quietly, a little bit hoarsely, yet it helps to take the edge off of Amber’s nerves, “which is where the president is from, also, but at the time that she had resigned to escape the rumors, she had returned to Guangzhou as the president continued to work up here. She took the trains a lot to come visit him whenever she could, but it’s a very long train ride - it’s about six hours if I remember correctly. So, a lot of the time, it wasn’t easy for her to escape her part-time work to come see him when he couldn’t just abandon the company. That one year… she had wanted to surprise them on the day of their anniversary, and Amber heard from a family friend that she had been planning to secretly stay the night here in the city and show up at the firm and propose for marriage that next day. Except that the train she took up here… derailed.”

“The president has never been the same since then,” Amber finishes that statement. “Ever since then, I’ve never once seen him smile. I’ve never heard him laugh. I’ve never seen him fall in love with another woman, and I’ve never seen him even show interest in another woman. He blames himself for her death because he feels as though if he hadn’t forced her to resign over the rumors, she would still be alive. He’s thirty-two, and not once in ten years have I seen him attempt to take another woman out on a date. And that, Yingtao, is why it’s very weird that you are the first person in ten years to have been put directly into Marketing with no preamble, because I, of all people, know what motive must have been behind that.”

“I’m so sorry,” he cries out openly, reaching up a hand to cover up the fact that tears are streaming down his cheeks, and Minseo coos beside him as she leans over to wrap her arms around him. “I’m so - so sorry, I - ”

“Why are you sorry?” Amber asks as she tries to force a weak laugh. “None of us could have predicted that this would have happened.”

Zitao shakes his head in Minseo’s arms, having no idea how to respond to any of them, as his thoughts race and it all just becomes way too much at once. He had already become teary-eyed realizing that Mr. Wu’s mother could possibly be terminally ill, but to know that he also lost the one and only love of his life practically the day of their anniversary? Zitao can’t handle knowing that somebody could have been in this much pain, and it’s in this moment that he feels selfish for being so distraught over his dying mother when at least she’s still alive. Soggy and sniffling, he pulls himself out of Minseo’s arms, and she coos empathetically as her face twists sorrowfully. “I want to call my mom,” he whimpers and reaches down onto the floor for his fallen cell phone. “I’m sorry.”

Quickly, he pads over to the door of the room before letting himself out into the hallway to make his phone call, and as the door clicks shut behind him, Amber sighs aloud as she lets herself flop back onto the mattress, energy-less. “I shouldn’t have told her,” Amber admits, and Baekhee tisks beside her.

“Do you guys know about Yingtao’s mother, too?” Minseo asks them carefully, yet the gazes she receives are mostly empty, indicating that they do not, in fact, know. “You know that Yingtao’s mother is terminally ill, right?”

“No!” Baekhee hisses softly, her voice whispered and awed. “Holy shit, is she okay?”

“Stupid fucking question,” Amber smacks her on the upper arm as she cuts her eye at her. “She’s terminally ill. She’s _dying_ , you idiot.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Minseo rushes to say, palms raised and spread in innocence, “but I overheard Yingtao and Qian talking about it. Qian told me that that’s why Yingtao works so freaking hard because her mother is all she’s got.”

“Why the hell does Mr. Wu overwork her, then?” Amber asks with a twisted expression. “God, he’s really gotten his head so far up his own ass that he doesn’t even know how to have a crush anymore. I should smack him.”

“Or,” Minseo smirks, “you could help get them together.”

Amber thinks about it - visually debates it, as she puffs her lips out and stares up at the ceiling in thought - before she shakes her head and says, “Nah, I think I’ll pass. Mr. Wu will just give her more hell to pay.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

“Have you received word on whether or not they have accepted my payment yet?”

Organizationally perfectionist, he presses the phone to his ear as he single-handedly scrolls through the electronic venue layout and highlights each box that he desires to have held and reserved; as the vice shuffles around on the other line, he catches the crisp, fluttering sound of papers being rifled through. “ _Not yet,_ ” he is told from the other line. “ _I will be sure to send you an email with the results if they do decide to phone the office with a response. In the event that they do not contact us again, what would you like for me to do, sir?_ ”

His fingers still along the trackpad where they had been softly slipping along the sheened plastic. He supposes that, of course, they _could_ wait it out to see if a response will be delivered at all, but he knows that time is a ticking bomb, and he has never had very much luck when waiting for time’s word over his own. “Call them back,” he speaks into the receiver, lifting a hand to rub over his eyes briefly as it has gotten very late, and sleep has begun to tug at his eyelids. “And ask them what has become of the Huang case.”

His vice laughs on the other line, airy and dry, before saying, “ _What are you going to do about that girl?_ ”

Expression tensing, his throat works in a brief swallow. “What girl?” He asks, attempting to feign ignorance and act like he has no idea _which_ girl his vice is referring to, for he works with many girls, hundreds, even. “I know many girls.”

“ _Don’t play stupid, Yifan,_ ” his vice mumbles on the other line, not having bought the card trick even in the slightest. “ _That Huang girl. What are you doing to do about her in regards to this case - are you going to tell her?_ ”

“Of course not,” he responds quickly, roughly. “It is not her immediate concern. She has more important matters to attend to, including this show and performing to the highest capability she could possibly encompass.”

“ _It does concern her, though, does it not?_ ” His vice asks, voice smooth. “ _As your employee, does it not occur to you that she deserves the bare-minimum amount of respect involved to be informed about matters that immediately involve her?_ ”

Fingers falling away from the forgotten trackpad, he sighs, leaning his forehead into stressed fingers as his elbows find stability on his knees. “I cannot tell her right now,” he settles with saying. “If I receive confirmation that they have accepted my payment and successfully wired the account, then I may inform her of what has happened. Until then, I would prefer to not cause a disturbance.”

There is creaking beneath the background noise, as though his vice had settled back into an old wooden chair, before his vice says, “ _And what are you going to do about your bias?_ ”

“I have no bias,” he responds quickly. “I am not… I will not make the same mistake a second time. Not when it does nothing but cause those around me to suffer.”

A breathy sigh, crackling as it’s blown right into the receiver. “ _Understood, sir. I will see to it that I get in contact with them first thing tomorrow morning and I will send you an email with the results of the phone call. Enjoy the show tomorrow, sir, and stay safe._ ”

“Will do, Yixing,” he sighs. “Will do.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Yingtao,” Minseo complains softly, moaning as she shakes his shoulders to wake him. “Yingtao, get up - it’s time to get ready.”

Zitao groans into his pillow, hugging it close to him as his long hair pours over his face and brushes along his cheeks, having been much too afraid to remove them around actual women and instead having left them in out of sheer carefulness. “Five more minutes,” he whines into his pillow, but Minseo is insistent and begins shaking his shoulders with more gusto.

“No five more minutes,” Minseo giggles above him, attempting to flip him over onto his back where he’d been sprawled out on his stomach. “We have to be at the venue in two hours.”

Against his own will, Zitao cracks open his eyes to look up at her sleepily and yawns into his pillow. She’s stood over him in a bathrobe, perhaps having just taken a shower, and Amber and Baekhee are sat on the opposite bed chatting to each other as a hair dryer hums in Amber’s hands where she’s brushing the other girl’s long curly hair out. “What time is it?” He asks groggily, voice a little bit deeper than usual. Perhaps with Amber having a deeper voice, also, it might be easier around them to let his guard slightly down.

“It’s almost noon,” Minseo laughs, and Zitao watches as she places her hands on her hips as though waiting for him to get up and out of bed. “We have to be at the venue at one-thirty. Did you not get the email?”

Oh. Zitao hadn’t thought to check his email yesterday, having been too preoccupied with speaking to his mother on the phone and reassuring her that he made it safely to Shanghai and that he was in good hands. Pushing his comforter back, he yawns and stretches as he sits up. “I didn’t think about it,” he admits. “Sorry, I should go shower and get ready.”

“Don’t sweat it, Yingtao,” Baekhee tells him with a smile across the room, and Zitao notices that she is in a white bathrobe, as well. “You were upset last night, it’s understandable. That’s why we let you sleep in a little bit longer.”

Still, Zitao hates to feel as though he were forcing the three of them to wait on him. He apologizes as he gets out of bed and stretches once more, sleep snapping free from his muscles and melting down his limbs, and he moves over to his nightstand to collect what he needs for a shower - when he realizes that he actually has no idea what to wear. Were they dress-coded for this event? Sure, Zitao knows that the walk will include them all wearing the president’s most recent brand launch, but are they supposed to wear something specific when showing up and possibly being critiqued by experienced professionals?

Confused, he sinks his teeth down into his bottom lip as he glances over his shoulder. “Hey,” he calls out, and the girls gaze at him from where they’d been collecting their own outfits to wear - possibly to change right here in the middle of the hotel room, which Zitao is not used to. “I, um… do you know what we’re supposed to wear?”

Lips pursing, Minseo is the one to respond as she shakes her head and brushes the twill of a crisp blouse in her hands. “Nothing in particular, but the email said to make sure it was both professional and characteristic. Not a hundred percent sure what that means, but it probably means like - don’t wear a secretary’s get-up with a pencil skirt and a matching blazer, but also don’t dress like you may go out clubbing.”

“Usually that just means to wear something well-coordinated according to your color palette that suits your body very well in a professional manner,” Amber explains with a deeper tone than the rest, and Zitao begins to understand it a little bit more. “So, for example, what is professional and classic on me would be a pair of ironed slacks, a blouse, a brimmed hat. Things that you look exceptionally good in that reflect your personality, without being too informal.”

“Oh,” he comments softly, and he thinks he gets it now. However, there’s still just one problem - he still has very little idea of how to coordinate outfits. “Um… could someone help me?”

At that, Amber’s brows turn downward. “Help you?”

“I’ll do it!” Minseo cheers out in excitement, arm raised and lips parted, and Zitao watches as she sets down the blouse she had been holding as she skitters over to him where he’s opening the walk-in to rifle through his clothing, all hung up with no color coordination to their organization. “Do you have your color palette?” She asks, and Zitao does - he had put it in the closet, on the top shelf by a box of Baekhee’s jewelry, and he slips the booklet from the shelf and hands it to her. “Alright, and what style do you like to wear the most?”

He blinks, mind flatlining. Styles? Zitao doesn’t know anything about styles.

Awkwardly, Minseo stares at him for a very long moment as she expects an answer, and Zitao is forced to tell her that he doesn’t know. At this, she lets out a curt little sigh and presses her curved lips together in a tight line. “Okay,” she huffs out with a soft breath and flips open the pages of the booklet in her hands to read over Zitao’s assigned colors. She is quiet as she runs her fingers along the fabrics of Zitao’s female clothing hanging up on the bar, tisking to herself softly as she passes each article.

Then - as she’s passing the threshold which separates Zitao’s section of clothing from her own - she turns to him with a smirk, and Zitao doesn’t very much like the plotting look in her eye. “Or,” she smiles at him, a trick up her sleeve, and Zitao falls silent, “I could customize you into something that will get the president’s attention.”

He grimaces at the mention of the president’s crush on him once again, and he really would prefer to not think about something like that right now because he knows that they are probably just imagining things, because, after all, hadn’t he sort-of-debunked this himself already? The president practically admitted to him - although in riddles - that his special treatment was because of his mother being terminally ill. He really wishes that people wouldn’t mistake something like that for the guy having feelings for him, for he doesn’t think his heart could take the disappointment and embarrassment of being turned down. “Please stop that,” he asks her nicely with a tensed expression, voice strained. “That… assumption.”

“What assumption?” She asks as her hand falls away from one of Zitao’s sweaters. “We were telling you the truth, Yingtao. Do you really want to turn down someone like the president? He’s gorgeous, after all, why would you say no to dating him?”

“He doesn’t want to date me,” Zitao sighs, wishing that he could get it through the girls. “You’re all just looking too deeply into this, really. I’m an apprentice and he’s giving me extra leeway because of that.”

“Yes, but why else would you be placed directly into Marketing?” Minseo asks him. “It’s too unlike him to do something like that.”

“Well, my mother is dying,” he shrugs. “There’s an idea.”

The girl’s lips purse as she glances back at the hung clothing just beneath her fingertips, as though she hadn’t thought about that. “It’s not like him,” she repeats, “even if your mother is very sick. He doesn’t just do that kind of thing easily.”

Zitao sighs, then, and shakes his head. “Look, can you just help me pick out something to wear? I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Minseo apologizes to him and resumes helping pick something out for him, and she simply lifts the hangers from the bar as she piles the clothes onto her open forearm before she hands them to him in a pile. “Here you go,” she offers him an apologetic grin as he takes the clothing from her, something denim mixed with something pastel pink, and he joins them with the clean panties and brassiere set that he’s got in his hand. “There should be plenty of hot water since we all showered a while ago. Oh, and because this is your first show, you should know - the president wants all of us bare-faced and our hair completely unstyled, so make sure not to put any product in it when you’re done, okay?”

Soaking up the statement as his thumb runs gently over the clothes pressed to his bosom, he nods, and Minseo leaves him be to go shower and having not had time to wash them ahead of time, Zitao leaves his extensions in as he shampoos his hair and leans back to rinse beneath the faucet.

Had they really all meant what they said? Sure, Zitao knows from his mother’s soliloquies that love can be entirely unexpected, and can even occur at first sight, but why would it be him of all people that this kind of love occurs to? Him, someone who would lead the president on should he engage in any kind of fathomable relationship with him because Zitao is a man and the president, as far as he knows, is generally into women. Whether solely or coupled with other genders, he is unsure, but Zitao doesn’t know how the man seeks out his partners.

As he conditions the soaked extensions he’s unclipped from his head and gathered in his hand, he finds it hard to pinpoint any excitement in the impending dress rehearsal, and sequentially, the show, for Zitao is now nervous to even so much as face the president. What happens if the girls had been telling him the truth, and what happens if he actually sees the president staring at him? He’s afraid to meet those soft yet sharp eyes, for he’s worried that if he does, he may fall completely into a passion that he had only gotten a glimpse of on the plane.

And what happens, if this all may be true about the president having spurred feelings for him upon first glance, if Zitao is turned down should the man hold a fear of commitment due to the passing of his late wife? Of course, he has to agree with Minseo because the man is very attractive, Zitao experiences that every single time they come within feet of each other’s personal space, but does it matter? For even should he say yes to getting asked into a relationship, what happens if the president finds out that he has been lying all along about who he is? Zitao sighs, for he doesn’t know.

 _Tell me, Mochou_ , he monologues as he runs his hair extensions underneath the pour of the faucet and tousles them with his thumb to clean them. _What kind of person was your husband, and what was it like to love him?_

With a heavy heart, Zitao dresses and brushes through his hair as he blow-dries it, and finds himself sighing at the young man that he sees in the mirror. Why would the president fall for somebody who looks like him beneath the makeup and beneath the disguise? There are so many women much more beautiful than he who exist in this firm, so why would it be him who is felt for?

He dreads the confirmation of whether or not the president’s feelings are fact rather than myth, as Zitao can’t bear to think of breaking the man’s heart by revealing his true identity, especially not after the man had already lost one love.

As he clips his extensions back into place and straightens the top layer of his hair to blend them in, he sighs once more, secretly wishing he didn’t have to do this.

“Yingtao,” Minseo knocks on the bathroom door from outside, and Zitao can hear the tinkling of car keys in somebody’s hand behind the muffled voice. “It’s time to head out. Are you ready?”

Glancing down at himself to zip up the fly on his denim skirt that cinches his embroidered blouse at the waist and flounces around his upper calves, he soaks up the sight of himself in the wall mirror beside the shower. “Yeah,” he calls out softly as he smooths out the clothes on his body and adjusts his breast pads with his palms, once again ready to face the world as a woman. “I’m coming.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
The dress rehearsal proves to be _intensely_ overwhelming.

The venue is absolutely massive, the amphitheater within it slightly smaller with a wrap-around stage that curves in a cul de sac formation, returning to the backstage as the exit joins the entry. Around the curve of the stage sit rows of seats, where just in a few hours, hundreds of photographers and potentially other designers as well as professional critics will sit and will watch their performances. Within the curve of the stage is an equipment booth complete with a control center and a sound mixer - are they going to have some kind of music?

As Zitao takes it all in, however, standing on the mouth of the stage just outside the backstage curtain, he finds himself breathless. The lights shine in his eyes, sparkling all along the vast ceiling like brilliant stars, and he finds himself blinded by them if he stares for too many seconds.

Yet - as he stands among the bunch, dazzling red-tones having been dusted across his eyelids and his cheeks and lips, his long hair having been styled up into delicate waves that part at his crown and pour down his shoulders in a long ponytail, his bangs having been curled to gently curtain over his forehead - he feels unerringly masculine. When the girls had told him to dress formally yet characteristically, he had trusted them to know exactly what that meant, when save for Amber and her more androgynous views on fashion, Zitao feels _entirely_ underdressed.

Each and every girl is dressed in expensive-looking sparkling gowns, some ruched with tulle at the feet and some strapless and glistening along the bodice with gems and stones, some in the highest heels Zitao feels he’s ever seen, and he’s left to stand awkwardly - in a chic little blouse with cuffed sleeves and a corset-waisted denim skirt with flouncing ruches at the hem that brush along his calves - and feels as though he was preparing to embark on a picnic beneath the sunset.

The girls really must not have been kidding when they offered to help him catch the president’s eye.

And on top of that, Zitao doesn’t know how it will possible to not meet the president’s eye, for he’s never seen the man dressed like this - his broad chest exposed in a deep slit as his mulberry pinstriped blouse remains half-buttoned beneath a black suit jacket with creamy white edging and matching berry-colored embroidered initials on the upper breast, his slacks buckled around his hips and tapered along the legs that seem to make them go on forever. His hair is styled up and to the side, sprayed meticulously into a handsomely-tousled coif, shimmering silver earrings dancing along his earlobes and the length of his lower auricles as he glances up from his clipboard with shadowed eyes, his eyebrows sharp where they’ve been filled in and the outer corners of his eyes extended where the dark burgundy shadow had been dragged. Gulping, Zitao nearly loses his breath when the president glances up at him with rigid eyes before his gaze flicks back to the clipboard, as though taking roll.

As Zitao stands around and waits for instruction, he feels the tug of a hand on his shirt sleeve and glances over to see Minseo pulling at him to get his attention, and he greets her silently with a forced curl of his lips. “What’s the matter?” He asks her softly, not wanting to speak too loudly should the president decide that he is not a fan of company chatter.

She’s got a shifty little smile on her face as her rosy cheeks gleam beneath the lights. It’s only after she’s glanced around to make sure nobody was closely eavesdropping that she leans in and whispers, “Have you see how Mr. Wu is dressed?”

As he pulls away, he sighs, gently tugging his arm back as he looks at her with a stressed expression. “Can you guys please stop?” He asks out of slight desperation. “Really, please just leave it alone. He doesn’t like me that way.”

She tisks at him, then, her lip curling upward. “Hey, don’t be so prickly. Good luck tonight, alright? Make your man proud.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Zitao reiterates, the corners of his lips attempting to curl. “I’m serious.”

“Alright, alright,” Minseo feigns truce as she holds up spread palms, inching backward to give Zitao personal space. “I’ll drop it. He’s still cute, though.”

Zitao sighs as he hears a loud knocking sound, repetitive in manner, and glances over to the foot of the stage to watch as the president taps his knuckles noisily against the back of his clipboard to gain their attention. He watches, silent, as the girls scurry over to the edge of the stage with their dresses gathered in their hands, and Zitao shivers under the weight of several agitated stares, and he, against his original will, feels very much like a sore thumb.

As he joins the rest of them on the edge of the stage, some sinking to their knees to lower their legs off of the stage to dangle, he watches as the president scans his eyes over all of them, perhaps double-checking his roll, and Zitao hates that the president’s eyes seem to linger on him for a second longer than the rest.

“It seems,” the president announces boldly, loud in the empty space as the whispering surrounding Zitao simmers down, “that everybody has taken my advice seriously and has shown up on time, which I greatly appreciate. Thank you for being so punctual, ladies, for it reflects your applicant mediocrity when faced with a new employer. As you know, I would like to run quickly through one last walk before the show starts in one hour. Assuming that you all have memories as adroit as I prefer to believe, please get into line in your appropriately assigned positions.”

Around him, the girls quietly shuffle into a line beginning several feet back on the leftmost hemisphere of the stage, and Zitao awkwardly stumbles out of the way of several girls who brush past him with perturbation-filled eyes. Okay, so he was number… what?

_Behind Yooyoung and in front of Dasom… or was it behind Dasom and in front of Yooyoung?_

His eyes glisten as he watches Dasom file into line in her spot, but which one was Yooyoung? Lips trembling as he walks forward without aim, Zitao doesn’t know. Out of pure fear that the president may get angry and accuse him of having a terrible memory, he shuffles in front of Dasom and prays that the girl who stands in front of him is Yooyoung.

The president guides them through a final practice walk on the curved stage, yet with the limited space that they are allotted to walk, the distances between each person have been significantly diminished and it’s only then, as the president watches how each model fares with the change, that the talent gaps become very much evident between the two departments.

“Stop,” he calls out, and the girls stop where they had been circling the rounded stage. He orders them to re-file and resume their place in line before Zitao watches the man walk over to them, clipboard in hand, as he stares at them for a very long moment.

Suddenly self-conscious, Zitao can’t help but feel like it might be _him_ that is being stared at, like he’s perhaps made a mistake that he doesn’t usually make and had messed everything up, his inexperience showing. Yet, as he holds his breath, hands trembling minutely at his sides as the president eyes each of them up, gaze unhappily shifting from girl to girl, he realizes that it must not solely be him that is to blame.

Then the president speaks and Zitao had almost forgotten how bold the man’s voice can be as he says, “I am unsatisfied with the line order. Forgive me for the last minute change, but I would like to regroup all of you.”

As the girls sigh around him, tension visibly snapping free from their joints as they roll their shoulders and their eyes, Zitao finds himself jittering with anxiety. How is he supposed to memorize a new partner for a show that starts in literally an hour?

As the chatter arises among those around him once more, Zitao bites down on his lower lip and watches the president flip back a sheet on his clipboard as he reads down what lies beneath it, and Zitao wonders if it may be a list, or perhaps an attendance sheet. When he looks up from the sheet, he calls out, “Miss Yang Dasom,” and as Zitao glances over at his minutes-ago partner, the president continues with, “please move to the front behind Miss Amber Liu.”

Silently, the girls watch as Dasom and Amber step out of their spots in line to move to the very front, and Zitao wonders just what exactly the readjustment of the talent gap means - does that mean those with the most attractive walks will be in the front, and those who struggle will be in the back? Zitao lets out a small sigh and decides he’d better get comfortable, for he knows he will be placed probably all the way in the back.

“Miss Huang Yingtao,” he hears and very nearly leaps right out of his skin. As he pokes his head out from over top Yooyoung’s shoulder, the president meets his gaze. “Please stand behind Miss Yang.”

His lips separate with a small sound as time begins to fizzle around him, and the astonished whispers once again begin to resonate into a low-decibel din as he feels eyes on him. Is he… really being put in the very _front_? No, there’s no way.

Awkwardly, he steps out of line and instinctively bows as he moves behind Dasom, and exhales shakily as though having been choked. As he trembles in his spot, Dasom turns slightly on her heel to glance over his shoulder at him and whispers, “Good luck, Yingtao.”

Wide-eyed and surprised, Zitao nods jerkily as he thanks her.

Then - “Miss Jung,” and Zitao’s throat runs dry as he glances over, and the look in the girl’s eyes scares him. “Please stand behind Miss Huang.”

If Zitao had been anywhere near wary that the girls had been telling him the truth about Jessica holding something against him, he holds no wariness anymore as she lifts up the tulle of her dress and tosses the president a sugary green before her expression practically melts away from her skin when she looks over at him and her lips curl in what Zitao could swear was a scowl. As soon as he registers it, though, she is already behind him in place, and he has to resist rubbing his eyes as to not mess up his makeup, or else he just might have to in order to reassure himself that he’s not just imagining things.

Although he would absolutely love to kiss his own ass and think that the president had organized them in order of how talented each girl is, the aura radiating off of Jessica behind him chills him, and he shivers in his thin pink blouse and rakes his palms up his arms as though the room were too cold.

Why, oh why, did it have to be him who stirs up trouble? All he wanted was help for his mother.

Zitao doesn’t enjoy listening to the rest of the line-up, especially being all the way in the front and therefore being unable to reach out to touch one of his friend’s hands for just a smidge of added support. From this far up, he has no idea how his friends are feeling - what if they, too, are upset that he was put in the very front?

From his recollection, Dasom is a very talented model, but so is Jessica, and he knows that there’s no way he could be anywhere near either of their expertise, so what makes him so special that he’s on par with them in this very moment?

Then, his eyes widen. It can’t be that so-called crush that the president has on him, it just can’t be. Zitao had been given very strict rules upon applying that he would be judged fairly and that the workload he would face would be more intense than that anybody else in the firm had experienced since he had started completely from scratch.

After several moments, Zitao safely assumes that the line has been fully reorganized when the president comes back into view, stepping around the narrow curve of the front of the stage where it loops after the strait, eyes trained on his reorganization of his employees as the clipboard has slackened in his hand, and Zitao watches as the man takes a graceful, handsome seat in one of the designated chairs in the very front row, having been marked with a white marker tag on the front of each backrest. “Alright,” the president calls out genially. “I have reorganized you to the best of my own as well as your own capabilities; those with quicker steps have been moved to the front, and those with slower steps have been moved to the back. Now, I would like for all of you to take a minimum and maximum of ten steps backward so that we may get one more practice walk in and so that I may see how this new set-up cooperates. Go on, move back.”

Zitao does as he’s been told, shuffling backward as the girls behind him move, also.

“Good,” the president commends them as he charmingly tosses one leg over the other, the leg of his trousers pulling upward to expose one round ankle beneath a black calf sock. “Now, I would like for you all to walk as you would while keeping at least six inches between each of you so that I may see how this coordination operates. Go on.”

Sucking in a breath, Zitao begins to walk, keeping in time with Dasom in front of him.

The stage is long but not that much so - a full walk-around would take maybe a total of twenty seconds without stopping, Zitao knows. As they had not been instructed to stop and to merely continue unerringly, Zitao has no plans of stopping as the bend approaches and he watches as Amber, all the way in the front as though line-leader, begins to round the turn.

That is, until something forcefully collides with the pillar of his shoe’s heel and he feels it snap beneath him and his ankle rolls as he tumbles, legs first, down the harsh edge of the stage and onto the waxed floor below, and he cries out in pain as he hears the _slap_ of the president’s clipboard onto the flooring as tears spring to his eyes. It hurts, it _hurts_ , and he grabs at his ankle in desperation as white-hot pain spikes up his leg and fizzles in his joints.

“ _Yingtao_!” Someone screeches behind him, another girl, and through the pain and the tears, Zitao can’t make out whether it’s Minseo or Baekhee or Dasom or perhaps somebody he doesn’t know, but the shuffling of loud, clacking shoes begins to buzz in his ears as everyone crowds around him and the president moves into his blurry view.

“What happened?” The president asks aloud, his tone taut with concerned, and Zitao’s hands jitter around his ankle as he attempts to move it just a little bit and sobs out as the pain spikes. He watches blearily as the president’s hand reels smoothly back toward his pocket, and Zitao watches - when feminine hands bracket themselves on the sides of his upper back and he finds himself unable to care who it is holding him - as the president procures a single folded tissue from his trouser pocket, and hands it to him.

As he takes the tissue in trembling hands and attempts to wipe away his tears, his sinuses beginning to clog, Zitao watches as the president gingerly reaches for the hand he’s got wrapped ankle and moves to pry it off, gentle fingers pulling softly as to not hurt him, and Zitao lifts his hand for the president to look at it. His ankle has swollen just a bit, and Zitao cries out in self-pity over the knowledge that after an hour, his ankle will probably have swollen considerably more. “Did anyone see what happened?” The president asks loudly, nearly in a roar, and Zitao whimpers beneath him in his sensitivity, not wanting to be yelled at. “For fuck’s sake, one of you must have seen it happen. I need to know what the fuck happened _right now_.”

“I think she fell,” he hears one of the girls say, and he looks up with a compressed expression and trembling lips as Jessica lays a hand on the president’s shoulder where he’s knelt down, and Zitao’s breaths thin out.

Zitao knows he hadn’t accidentally fallen down, for something had hit him - or kicked him - and he had been forced down, as though tripped.

No. She _wouldn’t_.

Unable to find the energy to speak, though, Zitao merely lets out a pitiful cry as the president’s thumb and forefinger tenderly press on the joint and it shoots pain down his foot and into his calf. At this reaction, the president’s head snaps up to meet his eye as though startled, and his warm fingertips draw away respectfully. “Miss Huang,” he sighs out. “I told you to practice your turns so this wouldn’t happen.”

Soggy and broken, Zitao shakes his head as his shoulders convulse through the sobs, his bottom lip worried between his teeth. “I - ” he attempts to speak, voice quivering. “I was - _pushed_.”

“Mr. Wu,” he hears Jessica say quickly as though to avert the man’s attention, and Zitao watches as she gathers her dress at the knee and kneels down to whisper into the president’s ear. “You _did_ say those who falter or cause commotion will be demoted or fired.”

“Yingtao wouldn’t do that,” he hears another person respond in rapid succession, arguing back, and Zitao can make out the typical tone and inflection of Minseo’s voice. “She’s been practicing relentlessly - she wouldn’t have made a silly mistake like that, Mr. Wu, and you know that.”

As though torn, the president lets out a heaving sigh as he hands his head for just a second, before he meets the girl’s eyes upward and behind Zitao’s crumbled frame, and Zitao wonders if Minseo might be the one holding him. “Miss Kim,” the president says with a tensed expression, eyebrows drawn. “Jessica has been with me for nearly seven years, and I know very well that she would never do such a thing to another employee. Miss Huang has been here for merely a month and has already caused several bouts of trouble for herself.”

Behind him, he hears Minseo tisk. “But Jessica is the type to do something like that, and especially to Yingtao - she pushed her in the studio just last week! How can you not see that, sir?”

Gruffly, the president responds with, “Because I have never once, in six years, had to scold Jessica for causing a disruption among the departments. Miss Huang is now on her second offense, Miss Kim, in only two weeks. Why would that seem unbiased to even the simplest of folks?”

“But I didn’t,” he sobs hysterically, body trembling, and not so much enjoying the way the president remarks that Jessica has been _with him_ but he has been _here_. “I didn’t stumble, I really didn’t, please _believe_ me.”

“The only person behind her was Jessica,” Minseo points out, and Zitao doesn’t like the way Jessica’s brows knit upward behind the president, as though offended. “Who else would have tripped her?”

“I didn’t see it, either,” he hears another girl say, perhaps the girl who had stood behind Jessica in line, and Zitao’s hope shrinks as he realizes there’s no proof that he’s innocent, and that all the cards have been stacked against him yet again in his life.

“ _Enough_!” the president barks out, and Zitao whimpers punily. “I will settle this, but in the meantime, I need _every_ single one of you to return to the dressing rooms. Miss Kim, please escort Miss Huang out to the hallway, I will deal with this there.”

As he hears the girls surrounding him shuffle away and watches, sickened, as Jessica stands and curls her upper lip just slightly in what Zitao knows is a scowl but is probably just his imagination as most things apparently are, Minseo’s hands gently fall away from his sides as she moves to his side and rubs her thumb comfortingly over the round of his shoulder over top his blouse. This can’t be happening, this can’t be fair - Zitao had done nothing wrong, had absolutely followed every single one of the president’s rules to the best of his ability, and he’s done his turns loads of times. He knows he wouldn’t have just tripped and rolled his ankle like that - there’s no way that had been accidental. There’s no way.

And in a weakened, battered state such as this, Zitao yearns for the comfort from the one that he has special eyes for, yet there is none as the president merely looks him over before standing and saying, “ _Now_ , Miss Huang,” and Zitao realizes that that glimpse of compassion he had come across when the president had felt his ankle was fleeting, likely a mirage, and Minseo reaches out for him.

“Can you stand?” She asks him softly, and Zitao is sure that he really can’t, but he nods his head anyway. Carefully, the girl helps him up with hands guiding his arms, and Zitao makes sure to get his footing on his capable leg. “Here, I’ve got you.” As he stretches his limbs out, though, he nearly crumples completely in the girl’s arms as his body gets used to supporting his weight on only one foot, and Zitao really wishes that it had been the president who helped collect him from that near-collapse.

“Out,” he hears the president command in a voice nowhere near gentle, and he sniffles as another tear falls. Of course, he would fuck it up - of course, the _one_ opportunity he gets to prove that he deserves this privilege, he would fuck up completely. “Now.”

The man’s voice is deep, threatening, and Zitao knows that tone means that if he doesn’t get moving, the president won’t resist insult and it will affect Zitao’s overall work score.

He exits the room in small little hops, Minseo acting as his second and third legs as she wraps an arm around his upper back and supports his weight on her little shoulders, and Zitao feels bad for the way she probably struggles when she hadn’t even been able to lift a little carry-on suitcase and yet has to help lift a man over sixty kilos in weight. The stairs that lead out into the hallway prove to be the worst, however, as Zitao’s body goes practically limp under her assistance and the weight pulls on his underarms, and when he glances back out of momentary curiosity when Minseo pushes open the double-doors, he realizes that the president is nowhere to be found.

“Here,” Minseo says suddenly as she makes him turn to the left, and Zitao notices that she must be gesturing for him to sit on the backless aluminum bench sat just outside the doors. As he hobbles over, her hold dips and she’s settling him on the bench with his injured leg very carefully maneuvered down onto the ground. As the ball of his bare heel touches the floor, however, he hisses as pain burns in his foot and Minseo quickly instructs him to lift it. “I’m so sorry,” she apologizes quickly. “I don’t have anything for you to rest your foot on - or any ice packs - ”

Zitao, by now, has become nearly all cried-out, his eyes red and his under-eyes swollen and bleary with smeared mascara. “It’s fine,” he tells her pitifully, beginning to understand that this is the end of his career and therefore the end of his mother’s life, and there’s not a thing that he can do to stop it. “Just forget it.”

“No,” Minseo presses as she reaches for his hands to brush her thumbs over the back of them. “You can’t just let this go, Yingtao, you’re injured. If she hurt you, we have to do something about it.”

Empty and guileless, he sighs and shakes his head. “Don’t bother,” he tells her as he reaches up with a trembling hand and wipes away his tears once more. “He won’t let her get in trouble.”

“Hey, stop,” Minseo whispers as she sinks to her knees before him and gazes at him with big, cautious eyes as though speaking to a toddler who’s just done something wrong. “Look, I know very well that you’re probably not lying about this and I know for a fact that Jessica is nasty enough to do something like this, so if anything happens, I’ll still have your back, okay? It’ll be okay, we’ll get you help and then Mr. Wu will take care of it.”

“He’ll fire me,” Zitao cries, legs trembling. “He doesn’t believe me.”

This makes Minseo fall silent and let out a small sigh as the tears return and Zitao turns his face away, and she moves forward to wrap her arms around him comfortingly as he sobs to himself. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbles into his hair. “You don’t deserve this, Yingtao. Trust me, I’ve got your back if anything happens, okay? I won’t let her take you down like this, not like this.”

Worn out, Zitao sighs as he lifts a trembling hand to wipe his under-eyes and pouts when his knuckles return smeared in black. He knows that any attempt to have his own voice in a situation like this is a lost cause, for he is far too new to have made a lasting impression of himself as a truthful person, the man was right. Unfortunately, Zitao cannot match the word of someone who has the president wrapped around their little finger through sexual intimacy.

As he hangs his head and sulks, he hears the rigid squeaking of a door as it swings open, and he looks up with slightly-blurred vision to see the president stepping out from the dressing room down the hall on the left, Amber a little bit late on his heel as she pushes a wheelchair behind him, empty and unfolded and clearly all for Zitao. As the president approaches, his hands curl at his sides and his eyebrows knit downward, soaking up the sight of the two holding each other with teary eyes.

Exhaling softly, the president stops just a few feet away, giving them space, before he side-steps and allows Amber to roll the wheelchair up to Minseo’s side. “Sorry about what happened, Yingtao,” Amber sighs as she offers him a sympathetic look, and it helps, just a little. “Mr. Wu said we should find you a wheelchair so that you can move around for the time being until we can get you to a hospital.”

As Minseo moves away from him, expectantly to help him into the chair, his eyes widen and he begins to shake his head, slow at first yet rapidly quickening in panic. “No,” he says softly. “No hospital. I can’t go to a hospital.”

“Miss Huang,” the president scolds before him, and Zitao glances up at him, his long hair falling back behind his shoulders. “You cannot neglect an injury such as this out of personal fear, it requires medical attention. Do not worry, you are not expected to pay for the treatment you receive.”

“No,” he repeats airily, throat working as he swallows briefly. “I - please don’t take me to a hospital, I’m - ” _a boy and if you admit me to a hospital room, I will be required to strip down to a hospital gown and they will find out._ “Can’t you call hospice or something?”

“Yingtao,” Amber stresses as she flexes her hands around the handles of the wheelchair. “It will take too long to get somebody down here, and how do we even know there is anybody available on such last-minute notice?”

“Enough of this nonsense,” the president chides angrily, arms crossed over his chest. “We are calling an ambulance immediately and we are taking you to the nearest hospital.”

“But I can’t just leave the show!” Zitao argues back, and the president’s head tilts to the side the slightest bit.

“You cannot perform with an injured ankle, Miss Huang,” the president’s tone softens just a bit, and Zitao pouts as tears threaten to fall again. “I will not be responsible for irreversible damage due to medical neglect, you are going to be taken to a hospital and that is final.”

“Why can’t you just listen to me for once?” Zitao asks aloud with tears in his eyes and a throbbing heart, and he hears Minseo gasp beside him because he had just talked back to the president. “I have done near every single thing you have asked me to do, from practice walking on my own time to avoiding Jessica as to not cause more trouble, to doing my best to make up for the gap between me and the other models in Marketing, and _still_ you never listen to a single thing I say. What do you want me to do? I have been doing exactly what you told me, following every single rule, and I get injured, and what? Now it’s immediately _my_ fault?”

The words stick to his skin like thick humidity, and his lips tremble as Amber’s eyes widen and as Minseo covers her mouth in shock with a prettily-manicured little hand, but Zitao doesn’t regret it this time. This is unfairly biased all because the president wants to think with his groin rather than his morals, and Zitao has just about had it. This is not what he had intended to have to deal with when he had applied, and yes, Zitao would put up with a lot of shit if it meant keeping his mother alive, but to have his job ripped right from his hands when he has done absolutely nothing wrong? That’s where he draws the line.

And even if talking back would be something that cost him his job, Zitao would do it all in the name of fairness, for he would lose his job even if he kept his mouth shut.

Sighing, the president glances away for a moment, perplexed and visibly angered, before he raises his chin masculinely and says, “Please return to the dressing room at once. I would like to speak to Miss Huang alone.”

Following the orders, the girls bid him their silent goodbyes before he watches them walk away and down the gleaming hallway, occasionally looking behind them to see if Zitao has been slaughtered and left for dead yet before they push past the double-doors on the left and disappear from view.

As Zitao sits awkwardly by himself, his eyes cast down at the ground as his hands grip the edge of the bench and his injured leg rests gently on his capable knee, the president remains silent before surprising him as he slowly kneels down, a single knee rested on the ground as he tries to meet Zitao’s eye level, yet this trajectory awards Zitao with more chest skin to look at if he glances over.

“Miss Huang,” he hears softly, deep and slightly-whispered, and Zitao is too afraid to look over. “I cannot judge this verdict without any proof - the same goes for any situation. Of course, there are cameras that record at all times, but I do not have access to them right now until after the show when the crew allows me. It is not an easy verdict to make unbiased, either, for you have only been here a month and have already caused two altercations. Do you not understand that?”

“No,” he whispers quietly. “Modeling is so unfair.”

He sees the president nod attractively out of his peripheral vision. “Yes, well, some things are unfair in life, but that is the dynamic of living. I cannot reprimand an employee just because another employee swears that she’s innocent, so yes, I will have to wait until the show has concluded to view the cameras, which means you are not permitted to walk in the show until you have received medical attention.”

“What?” He whispers as he looks up straight into the president’s soft brown eyes. “But that’s so unfair, I worked so hard!”

“If you would prefer that a medical professional be brought here to you,” the president interrupts him once more with more pressure in his voice, “then you will have to wait until the walk has ended.”

“But - ” he begins to cry once more as it sinks in that all of his hard efforts are going down the drain as they speak, “but I worked so hard.”

“Enough,” the president speaks softly, procuring him another clean tissue from his pocket. “Stop crying, you are ruining your makeup.”

Zitao sniffles as he stifles any remaining tears in the napkin, folding it around his finger as he wipes at his under-eye area which has absolutely messed up anything he’s had under his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he bleats out.

“Stop apologizing, as well,” the president scolds him gently. “Amber and I have located a wheelchair for you to be able to return to the floor and watch the show from our designated seats. For convenience sake, you are to stay in the audience until the show concludes and only after the audience files out will someone return for you to take you out into the foyer and to the bathroom if you so desire. Do you understand?”

He sniffles once more, finding it intensely unfair that he was so close to getting to walk in a professional show. Well, watching it from front row probably won’t be too terrible - plus, he’ll get to watch how the president conducts his professional shows, and maybe that will be a good learning experience for him. Maybe?

Albeit extremely upset with the president’s decision, Zitao’s energy has drained significantly since beginning to cry, and he finds himself nodding out of sheer exhaustion and disinterest in arguing any further. “Okay,” he mumbles, and he watches as the president presses his lips tightly together as he gives him a curt nod, a sign that he is satisfied with Zitao’s feedback.

“You will not be alone,” the president responds as he stands smoothly and brushes off his slacks from where he’d knelt. “Some of the photographers have come along, as well, to take photographs for the company database. You will stay with them for the duration of the walk, and once it has concluded, only then may you leave. That is fair, is it not?”

Sighing, he nods, and the president tells him that for the meantime, they will wrap his ankle in a thick bandage and tape it down so as to try to relieve the pain from the swelling. Teary-eyed from the pain, Zitao allows them.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
It’s very lonely sitting by himself with not one of his friends near him.

Sure, he’s spoken to Mr. Park maybe a handful of times, but Zitao does not know a single one of these other photographers, whether participating under their firm or otherwise elsewhere, and he certainly does not recognize any of the other men and women who fill the dimly-lit room.

It’s also quite embarrassing to be the only injured person in the room, having one shoe on and one shoe off with his folded wheelchair propped up against the height of the stage several feet away. Occasionally, he finds himself glancing over and unfortunately noticing pairs of eyes trained judgmentally on him, and he forces himself to bite his tongue when he looks away each time. Is it that uncommon for a professional model to injure herself?

He actually finds himself excited when the stage lights illuminate and the audience begins to clap as the president strides elegantly down the length of the stage with a knowledgeable gait in his step, and Zitao finds it breathtaking. “Good evening,” the president announces a little bit monotonously into the microphone he holds in long fingers, yet charismatic in his words aside from the flattened tone. “Tonight, I will be showing you the upcoming fall release from KW Enterprises, which will be out on the first of September of this year for public sale.”

Silently, Zitao finds himself enraptured in way the man speaks - this must be his professional facade, much more well-put-together and his voice much clearer and rounded in pitch than it is in private, and Zitao can just about make out the shadows of a tightly-pressed business grin on the man’s lips that looks nothing at all like a smile, something forced and awkward and quite possibly painful to wear.

How would a real, genuine smile look on those lips?

Eyes widening, Zitao pinches himself surreptitiously to stop himself from the possibility of dreaming. _Stop it, this is serious._

“Unfortunately,” the president continues with a sudden downward inflection, exhaling very slightly, “we are one model short tonight. One of my best walkers had rolled her ankle before the show and is unable to perform tonight, so I hope that the rest of them deliver a satisfactory performance for you all to make up for it. Thank you.”

Swiftly, the man bows and Zitao jitters as the audience’s applause resumes. Is he… really one of the _best walkers_? That seems too coincidental to be true.

Still, he finds himself clapping as Amber’s figure appears from the shadows of the backstage curtains, clad in dark brown and orange plaid knee-length shorts and a white blouse with dark brown and orange embroidery on its breast, something that Zitao knows was handmade all by her, and as she strides to the front of the stage to round the curve, he finds himself smiling.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“I’m so sorry for making you wait,” Minseo apologizes as she helps him haphazardly into the chair, for Zitao is heavy especially for a girl nearing six foot, and Zitao winces as his injured ankle awkwardly slides against the footrest. “Younghee had trouble getting her nipple tape off and Eunwoo needed help zipping her waist trainer back up.”

“It’s okay,” he grunts as he finally comes to rest in the chair, and she blows out a relieved sigh as Zitao settles his hands along the armrests and she wraps her hands around the handles on the back of the chair as she begins to wheel it toward the exit. “I’m sorry that you had to walk without me. You looked really good up there, though - I’m proud of you.”

“Awe,” she coos humorously behind him. “Look at you being such a considerate girlfriend. I think I deserve to get broken up with for leaving you all alone like that next to Mr. Park and Mr. Chan.”

“Alright, not so fast,” Zitao laughs as Minseo wheels him out into the hallway which attaches to the foyer, and his eyes adjust to the bright lights once again. “I haven’t even taken you out to dinner yet, you can’t dump me that soon.”

The girl laughs as she stops at just the edge of the foyer by the bathrooms and the vending machines before she comes around into his view and asks, “Do you need anything to eat? A pee break, a drink? Anything before the hospice nurse arrives?”

It does reassure him a little bit that help is on its way to him for his ankle, yet despite the desire to use the restroom while he is here, he knows very well that Minseo would struggle greatly trying to assist him to the bathroom and he sees no crutches in sight, and would much rather not burden her all that much. “I am a little bit hungry,” he admits, but he realizes that he hadn’t taken his wallet with him and had left it in the hotel, as he hadn’t planned on eating while at the venue. “Fuck, I don’t have any money on me.”

“Don’t worry,” she smiles, and her fingers dive into her top for just a moment, Zitao’s eyes widening before she procures a stack of folded bills from her bosom. “I do.”

Lips parted, Zitao watches in shock as she unfolds the bills one by one in her palm. That… seems like a very useful method of keeping money on hand if you’re a woman, and he wonders why he’d never thought of that before. Perhaps it’s because he never had breasts to place items within.

“What would you like?” She asks him gently, her eyes bright and her under-eyes glistening and sparkly. “I think there are protein bars in the vending machine, but there’s a little coffee shop just down past the foyer right outside if you want something hot and fresh. Choose quickly, though, because Mr. Wu said he wanted you in the dressing room within fifteen minutes because the nurse will be here soon.”

As upset as he’s been today, Zitao doesn’t exactly find himself yearning for a coffee - with how tired crying himself out has made him, he much prefers early sleep than a coffee high. Now thinking about it, a cool, milky tea sounds appetizing. “Can you get me an apple turnover and a milk tea? I’ll pay you back when we get to the hotel.”

Laughing, Minseo nods. “Any certain kind of milk tea? Any certain kind of boba?”

Eyebrows raising, his eyes widen a little bit. “They have different kinds?”

“Oh yeah,” she smirks at him. “Especially here in Shanghai, they’ve got clear boba and rainbow boba. It’s the cutest thing ever.”

Wow - Zitao might suddenly have a real reason to get out more often other than shooting landscapes. “Can you get me a taro tea with rainbow boba?”

“Of course,” she smiles. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, okay? Don’t roll too far away.”

As she leaves him and turns down the foyer, Zitao realizes that he doesn’t deserve people like Minseo or Luhan. As sticky as this situation may be, he knows that it is much easier to settle with the majority vote and see Zitao as the bad guy who is trying to defame the higher-ups, rather than seeking out his individual side of the story.

He wonders what kinds of friends Minseo makes as a collective group - does she get along better with loners such as Zitao, or does she get along fairly well with socialites such as Dasom? Zitao wonders what she prefers to do in her spare time, whether it be something self-supplementing akin to Zitao’s photography, or if it would be something more social like going out to bars with her friends, or perhaps on long walks with her earbuds in, or maybe even something as mundane as going to the gym every night and doing cardiovascular exercises. He wonders if they would get along at all if she knew that he wasn’t a female and if they would have anything to talk about if she knew that Zitao had no real interest at all in fashion or modeling.

He wishes Minseo well, for she deserves a lot for someone so selfless and open-minded as to see the good in each and every person she comes across. To have simply one person not stare at him as though a freak when he had arrived his first day and had finished his initiation, had been enough for him to believe that he wasn’t as awful as the rest around him had made it appear.

He sighs, settling his shoulders back into the comfort of his mobile seat. Is this really worth it? Breaking his ankle, making enemies against his own will - is this really worth it? He knows it is, but the universe seems to be a very big fan of stacking the odds against him each and every time he does something.

He also wonders what kind of girl Minseo is - would she be that girl who orders coffee and also a slice of pizza and sits by herself by a window and eats silently, or would she be that girl who orders a colored latte and takes pictures of it to show it off to her friends? Zitao has never gotten to observe women this closely and extensively before, and he’s never realized just how differently they act than men. Women are more tenderhearted and more empathetic than men, but can also be cattier than men like he had witnessed the other evening in the hotel room.

Distantly, he wonders if any of them perhaps have already been able to see through him but are just keeping it to themselves.

No, that’s silly - they would have said something by now, whether it be to him or to the president or even to their friends to cause a ruckus. He’s simply overthinking things, and besides, he’s been putting his body and his mind through a lot lately. It being a large venue with a great number of people, Minseo will probably be several minutes before she returns, and Zitao supposes that the first place the nurse will head will be the dressing room in search of him, and Minseo would be headed there soon after giving Zitao his requested snack and his drink.

To speed things up, Zitao decides to take hold of the wheels on his wheelchair and push himself around and down the hall toward the dressing room. If anything becomes of this incident, Zitao wants to be known for being proactive and helpful, rather than having sat back and having made everyone falter over him and his whereabouts.

 _Right_ , he reassures himself calmly, hands straining along the wheels. _The president said he would check the cameras, and then he would be able to give a final verdict over who is being reprimanded. They must have caught it on the cameras, there’s no way the cameras could somehow make it seem as though I staged it._

He sighs. _I hope._

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“What are you pulling me so roughly for?”

Yanking her hand back, she smirks as the restriction around her wrist slides away from gentle fingertips, cautious and self-aware and which would _never_ hurt such a pretty little fly.

“What did you do?” He asks gruffly, his gaze sharp.

Passive still, her little lips purse as her hands knit innocently together on her front. “What have I done? You tell me; I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“You know _goddamn_ well what I am talking about,” he threatens with a half-step closer, tone gravelly and baritone. “What did you do to her?”

A raise of the eyebrows, a little cock of the head. “Oh? What makes you think that it’s me who did something to her? She’s clumsy on her own.”

“She would not have missed that turn,” he clarifies with a rigid expression, “and you _knew_ that. And now, because of you, her ankle has likely fractured and so I ask you with the expectation that you will be complacent - _what_ have you done?”

“What if I’ve done nothing?” She whispers. “How do you know she didn’t walk too close to Dasom and trip over her feet? And so what, even if I _did_ do something, are you going to fire little old me? Because, you know, if you do… you don’t get any more.”

Her words are punctuated with a filthy little swipe of her hand down the front of the man’s trousers, and he quickly snatches her fingers away in a pressed grip and wrenches her wrist upward. “You knock it off,” he scolds quietly, “and you be fucking honest with me because you know _damn_ well that you hold jealousy with very ill intention, and I have absolutely had it up to here with this pathetic quarrel between the two of you. If you will not be honest with me, I will have no problem whatsoever methodizing this situation otherwise, but I would expect out of simple respect for me, that you would tell me the truth when I ask for it.”

“Fine,” she shrugs flippantly, her aura passive and unbothered. “Maybe I kicked her, or maybe I didn’t. It doesn’t matter because she doesn’t belong here _anyway._ ”

“That is not your call to make, Sooyeon,” the man’s volume drops, his jaw going rigid. “It is none of your business who I hire and for which reasons because the only instance in which any of this affects you in any way is if you integrate yourself unfairly into it and make it affect you. Do not dare disrespect my cabinet and act as though you know more than knowledgeable professionals do.”

“She doesn’t deserve it,” she whispers, lips tight. “She’s fucking you, isn’t she? Does she fuck you better than me?” She mumbles bitterly as she trails fingers up his arms, her strokes feather-light and intimately teasing. “Is that why you haven’t let me touch you in two weeks? Does she suck that big, fat cock better than I do?”

“I said _knock it off_ ,” he barks in her face as he swats her hands away, and her eyes go a little bit wider and a little bit glassier. “What do you want from me? You want me to fuck you just so you can go around injuring my models and then get away with it? Fucking forget it, this thing between you and I? It is over.”

He turns swiftly on one polished heel and moves to stride away before a small hand is clamping around his wrist and keeping him grounded. “Wait,” she mumbles quickly, and his mood darkens as he turns back around to face her. “You have no proof still. You can’t just take her side so easily, did you not think about this thoroughly?”

Snidely, then, a corner of his lips quirks up in a sly little smirk as his shoulders jitter for just a moment, as he lets out a humorless, breathy laugh from behind a solid expression, and says, “You forget that the venue has candid camera footage and that I have every right to view it to my professional desire. Perhaps next time, do not insult my competency and you might find yourself given more legal leeway.”

He yanks his hand back and readjusts his wristwatch before bowing in a curt nod and turning around, and he listens as she makes feeble attempts to wrench him back and to win over his side of things again, but he knows very well that she must have been behind all of these problems with Miss Huang this whole time - after all, who would have been so desperate to help their terminally ill mother that they would willingly toss that opportunity away by getting into fights?

He’d been blind, and he hadn’t stopped to see the other side of the looking glass, but now that fate has chosen to crumble around all of them, he no longer has any mind to pay it.

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Ow,” Zitao winces as the nurse’s fingers carefully poke and prod around the swollen joint, eyes making careful note of the discoloration and the tenderness in the press of the swelling. The touches ache deep in his bones, yet with pressure and weight having been kept off of the extremity, for the time being, Zitao finds it tolerable.

The nurse is a young lady, dressed in navy-blue scrubs and with a sheened face mask hooked at her ears having been nestled under her chin, seeing no threat in being contaminated as Zitao only has an injured ankle. Several minutes ago she had arrived and had introduced herself to the lot, and Zitao had felt very much like the denominator that once more was bringing the group grief and disdain, yet the models had proved to be very supportive and careful - Minseo had returned with his snack and his drink and the nurse had allowed him to pick and sip as she analyzed his ankle, Dasom had opened up the nurse’s first aid kit for her to find the ice packs, and Yooyoung had stepped in to find a cushion to prop Zitao’s foot up on in his wheelchair. He’d gotten teary-eyed, then, not having expected them to respect him that way - and the newness of being treated as a human being rather than an enemy with career bias made him happy beyond words. With sympathetic smiles on all of their faces, they had all hugged Zitao as he wheeled himself into the dressing room with a single bare, bandaged foot, and had apologized on behalf of what had happened.

As the room falls into comfortable silence, the nurse knelt before him on the floor with his ankle in her gentle hands and the models all watching them with equally nervous and curious gazes, Zitao hears a door open behind him and glances back behind himself to see who had come in - heartbeat skipping, he realizes it had been the president, just the same as Zitao had seen him just minutes prior, though perhaps a little bit more angry-looking, and the man is cordial as he greets the nurse and shakes her free hand before sliding his into his trouser pockets and saying, “I apologize for being a few moments late, for I had something to take care of. Have you discovered what the problem seems to be?”

Looking up at him as she retracts her hand from Zitao’s ankle, the nurse says, “Well, unfortunately we do not have any X-ray footage to have been able to look at the structure of the bones, but from feeling around, it seems we have a lateral malleolus fracture down the length of the medial malleolus, which is the side of the end cap where the tibia meets the talus down here. Very slight, practically hairline.”

Pitifully, Zitao groans. “Only I would break my ankle at work.”

Ignoring the model’s complaints, the president crosses his arms over his chest. “What is to be dictated, then? What treatments should we go forth with presenting?”

As though finished already, the nurse begins to pack up her medical kit and stands from her knelt position with her belongings in her arms before she says, “Fractures are treated with splints and plenty of rest off of the injured joint as it repairs itself. No surgery required. For a lateral fracture, usually, the recovery period is about six weeks with a follow-up with a regular physician to ensure that none of the bones outside of the fracture have chipped.”

“What?” Zitao asks softly. “But… I can’t be off my foot for that long. I have to stand all day at work, that’s what I _do._ ”

She shakes her head, though, her blonde ponytail swaying behind her. “I am very sorry, miss, but you cannot put weight on that foot until it has successfully healed.”

“But that’s not fair,” he whines. “I can’t be out of work for six weeks, I can’t even afford to buy myself any food, and I - ”

“Excuse me,” the president announces aloud, tone structurally sound. “I would like to have a moment with Miss Huang alone, so I have to ask that you all please leave the room for the time being.”

“Of course,” the nurse responds with a bow, and the models stand from where they’ve been sitting on the dressing room furniture, some on the sturdier shelving low to the ground. As each one passes him by, he feels his anxiety beginning to creep up more and more - what is the president going to do to him in private? Is he going to scream at him - or maybe even choke him?

Or worse - what if something intimate happens? What if Zitao has to be confronted with the knowledge that this so-called crush the president apparently has on him is actually fact and not just myth? He’s not sure if he would be happy or uncomfortable knowing his own boss wants to be romantically involved with him.

Carefully, the president closes the door behind the last girl to leave with a soft click before turning around and crossing his arms over his chest, and Zitao refuses to look at him nor meet his eye. The room falls quiet as neither the president nor Zitao speaks, yet Zitao’s thoughts race to make up for the volume gap.

Anxiously, the president’s shoes clicking against the floor as he walks slowly around the open space, Zitao finds himself blurting out, “Please don’t fire me,” and when the footsteps stop, he continues with averted eyes and jittery hands. “I’m - I fell, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to miss that turn, but I promise that I’ll stand on one leg and take pictures! I’m really good at that! I have impeccable balance and all of my other peers in martial arts class used to think so too, and I can stand on one leg for eleven minutes - _twelve_ minutes, one time! In fact, one time during hide-and-seek, I hid behind a bird statue by this boudoir on one foot and they didn’t find me the whole game, and I won a plaque - ”

“You are not being fired,” the president interrupts briskly, and Zitao sinks his teeth into his lower lip as he glances up from beneath his bangs, sneaky and surreptitious and trying his best not to make eye contact. “The reason you are not being fired is that Jessica is being demoted to Rec.”

At that, his eyes widen and he finds himself unable to refrain from looking up straight into those eyes, and the rigid edge in them is proof enough that the man is not lying to him. “What?” he mumbles along a curved whisper, mind blanking. Had he… has he really won this round? Finally?

“We checked the cameras,” the president tells him matter-of-factly, “exactly the way I had told you we would. The staff did, in fact, manage to catch Jessica kicking you in the heel right before you rolled your ankle and fell, and for that, I sincerely apologize, Miss Huang.”

He lets out a choked-off sigh of relief, unable to believe that they _finally_ caught her in her shit. “It’s okay,” he sighs, the corners of his lips trying to curl into a grin.

“No,” the president suddenly mutters, and Zitao’s grin dissipates. “It is not okay.”

Although Zitao wants to ask what he means, he doesn’t get very much opportunity to before the man is tugging at the legs of his slacks as he swiftly begins to kneel down, and Zitao shakily averts his vision to the side as the man comes into direct view. No, he won’t do this here - he can’t fall for him anymore especially with him this close in proximity, for Zitao knows that if he were to glance over and gaze into those soft brown eyes, he would drown and would have a hard time resurfacing.

“Look at me,” he hears the president say flatly, but Zitao is quick to ignore the request as he keeps his eyes drawn to the side and down to the floor, staring at the wall outlet diagonally behind him that has suddenly become very interesting to look at. Then - “Yingtao,” and Zitao’s heart drops. “Look at me.”

As though simply drawn out of his timid cave, Zitao finds himself glancing over and meeting the president’s eyes, and his pulse quickens. The fact that the president had chosen to speak his first name for the very first time when not in regards to attendance has his insides feeling fuzzy, and it’s a feeling that Zitao doesn’t understand.

In his silence though, the president takes in a breath before letting it out in a sigh. “I am very sorry to you,” he says, and Zitao’s hands curl. “I should have believed you. Jessica is… no stranger to hoarding jealousy in regards to those who threaten her prestige.”

Eyes wide, Zitao swallows. “Her prestige? What… what do you mean?”

“Simple,” the president shrugs a little bit. “She feels threatened by you at work and decided to take it out on you. I know this because Jessica is good at bribery to get what she wants.”

 _Yeah, no kidding_ , Zitao thinks. There’s a reason that she and the president had a sexual relationship for who knows how long. “I’m sorry for ruining the show,” he admits softly, tongue peeking out to lick over his bottom lip and he _swears to God_ the president’s eyes had flickered down for just a moment to follow the movement and Zitao’s heart twists. “I really did practice a lot, I did. I just… I don’t know.”

The president’s jaw tightens for a just a second before he says, “It does not matter; we will have you put in a splint and I then expect to see you at work on Monday. After all, you can - how did you put it? Stand on one leg and take pictures?”

Heart pounding, Zitao feels as though he’s dreaming. “Sir?” He asks quietly. “I caused a disturbance, aren’t I supposed to be punished?”

The man ponders it for a short moment before glancing up at him with a passive expression, chin raised. “Not if you continue to work to the best of your ability and prove that you deserve the money that you earn.”

And there’s that bias once again, and Zitao finds himself emotionally immobile, for he’s truly cornered himself into an unflappable corner. Although he genuinely struggles each and every day with keeping himself disguised and keeping his aliases mundane, Zitao prides the president for having the courtesy to at least see it from his standpoint and to understand that people make mistakes, as no person is truly invincible, and it warms him deep down inside to make a lasting impression on such a man. Teary-eyed, he finds himself smiling. “Thank you,” he whispers, a black-stained tear rolling down his cheek before the man reaches over to the wall-side vanity and hands him a rectangular tissue box. “Thank you so much, Mr. Wu.”

“How many times have I told you to stop crying?” The president whispers, gaze soft and contradictory to his words. “You are ruining your makeup.”

  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“What did you do?” His mother gasps as he hobbles in with a crutch rested under his right arm. Shiftily, he smiles a lopsided grin as he limps into the room in uneven steps. As he maneuvers himself toward her bed, he takes a swift, relieving seat by her feet as he rests the crutch against her bed frame.

Smirking and using his hands to lift his injured leg to fall beside her so she can get a view of his splinted ankle, he looks at her with bashful eyes. “I fractured my ankle,” he smiles sheepishly, and his mother rolls her eyes.

“Could you, for just a moment, not fall apart?” His mother laughs, her sunken eyes slitting. “Good grief, I leave you alone for five days and you break something. What are we going to do with you?”

“I didn't mean to!” He pouts. “I fell and rolled it and the impact on the ground fractured it. I have to be off of my foot for six weeks.”

His mother laughs, then, and reaches out to slap him gently on the upper back. “I don’t think Luhan is going to be very happy to hear about that, mister. We need you to keep yourself in one solid piece.”

“Okay, but I’m trying!”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Having to wait painstakingly patiently for an injury to heal is one of the most boring and anxiety-inducing things Zitao has ever done, and by the time his ankle fully heals, it has now brushed upon the early breaths of summertime, where he is one year older, and he feels fulfilled in a way in which he would personally consider his recovery a birthday milestone.

Now being able to use his feet again, Zitao has started to go on daily jogs, and it’s beginning to help him clear his mind each and every day.

Since having arrived at his mother’s room earlier that day, Zitao had made a very clear mental note that he has not yet seen the president step foot into the hospital, and with that knowledge, he finds himself a perfectly opportune slot in his schedule to slink out of his mother’s room, head to the bathroom for a mask, and go exploring. If the president has not come yet, then that gives Zitao a once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity to see his mother all by himself. 

He knows that inviting himself somewhere he doesn’t belong could both be considered disrespectful as well as dangerous, for it may be only moments before the president walks through that door and catches him, but Zitao cannot seem to help himself. 

Silently, he tiptoes toward the woman’s door and peers carefully in, once again being faced with the sight of the president’s mother asleep in her little cot, wispy dark gray hairs limp against the pillow where she lays motionless and her bedside monitor beeps in time with her heartbeat, and Zitao wonders why it is that the president’s mother is monitored as compared to his mother who is not, and what, medically, must differentiate that decision to monitor a patient’s heartbeat. 

Quietly, he sighs as he watches her sleep. She must have been a wonderful, lovely mother, and Zitao hates that he can relate all too well to having to be the source of vital income to keep a mother alive, and he empathizes with the president far too deeply. He cannot begin to imagine how much pain it will cause him should he lose his mother, when as the owner and proprietor of a fashion line and a modeling firm, he already has enough on his plate. 

As he’s peering curiously, he feels a series of gentle taps on his shoulder, and immediately thinking they may be the president, he jumps in surprise and whips around, his eyes wide - yet they soften just a smidge for it is merely a nurse, a brown-haired lady with small eyes and a clipboard in her hand. “Excuse me,” she says softly. “Are you here to visit Ms. Wu?”

Beneath the mask, his breaths come short. “Y-yes,” he stutters, unsure of how to dictate whether or not he is in trouble. 

“May I ask who you are?” The nurse requests sweetly, purely, and Zitao’s hands jitter on the doorframe. “We are required to only allow the pre-selected family members access to Ms. Wu’s room - it is simple protocol, you see.”

“I, um,” he begins unsurely. “I’m, um… Ms. Huang’s son down the hall. I know I’m not family, but I - I know Ms. Wu’s son and I… just wanted to come give my, um… my condolences.”

“Unfortunately, we are not supposed to allow you to interact with the patient if you are not part of the allotted visitation selection of family, but I suppose you may go in if you do not interact with her,” the nurse tells him, and Zitao breathes an internal sigh of relief. “She is having her midday nap right about now, so I will need you to be sure that you remain extremely quiet, please.”

As he nods, the nurse steps around him with quiet little feet as she strides over to the woman’s bedside and begins to check on her intravenous status. As she lingers by the monitor, Zitao takes it as an immediate okay to follow her, and he tiptoes into the room beside her, his fingers awkwardly knotted together where they linger on the front of his body, as he soaks up the sight of the president’s mother this close up. 

His only previous experience with this harmless stalking had been from afar, having lingered by the doorframe in the safety of his decrepit veiling of the unknown, where the president had been unsuspecting and Zitao had been able to carefully peek. Now that he gets to view the woman up-close and in person, it proves to be a little bit upsetting. She’s an emaciated little thing, skin pallid and sallow where her intravenous tube trails into her arm, skin flourished in brights as though a bruised peach. Unlike his own mother, she has no medical bedside tag - and Zitao finds comfort in the assumption that that was a privacy decision, that perhaps the president doesn’t exactly enjoy broadcasting to the world what exactly is wrong with his mother. Zitao understands, and Zitao sympathizes. 

“Excuse me, miss,” he whispers quietly to the nurse, who turns a little on her heel where she’d been refilling the woman’s intravenous bag. “I know the answer is probably no, but… would I be allowed to know what is wrong with Ms. Wu? I don’t need details, I just… is she terminally ill or - is it something minor?”

“I cannot reveal that information,” the nurse tells him as she shakes her head, her tied-back hair bouncing behind her. “The only person who has the permission to dictate to whom the familial and intrapersonal information may be given out to is her eldest son. When he is not here, I do not have the power to ask him for permission.”

Sighing softly, Zitao nods as he glances back to the president’s mother as she sleeps. It would make sense for the president to be stingy about keeping his mother’s information as well as condition updates secret, as he is a public figure, after all, and just about anybody could come in here and lie and say that they were family simply to eavesdrop. “How often does the son come here?” He asks quietly. “Does he come every day?”

“He comes most days,” the nurse confirms as she turns away from the monitors and faces Zitao. “Usually in the evening-time on weekdays, he will arrive and will often stay until the nighttime. He is Ms. Wu’s only source of support and companionship, at the moment.” 

Heartbeat skipping, the corners of his lips begin to pull downward in a frown; does she really have nobody else other than her son? Zitao’s eyes begin to gloss over and fog, for he cannot imagine having to live such a lonely life - how could people abandon such a poor lady that way? “What does he do for her when he’s here?” He asks quietly from behind the mask.

The nurse takes in a slow little breath through the nose as she drums her fingers softly on her clipboard before she says, “He checks up on her, as medically expected. He helps us to feed her, he helps us to bathe her, and he helps us to change her as well as her bed pan and her bedding when need be. He usually stays for several hours to keep her company, but often cannot stay for too long of a time for he does work full-time. There was one day about a month ago, however, that we did see him come in, but he never came to Ms. Wu’s room. Not very sure what he was doing if he hadn’t been beelining straight here, but he had a collections folder in his hand that day. Strange.”

He nods to himself, for he has no idea what the man might have been doing here with a handful of documents, either. He would assume that having a mother who is very ill and even lonelier at that, would require him to have to do a lot while he was here - especially visiting the financial department if they ever gave the president the shit that they gave Zitao about payment.

“Young man,” the nurse mumbles in a soft voice, and Zitao jitters out of his thoughts as he glances up at her, his thumbs crossed in his lap. “I have to take Ms. Wu’s dishes back to the commissary - the hospital protocol is that you must leave while nobody else is in her presence, so I will require you to have left by the time I return - understand?”

“Yes, miss,” he tells her, having no ill intention of getting himself in trouble. Politely, the nurse bids him a brief goodbye before she steps out of the room with the emptied, used dishes in her hand, and as the palatable silence sinks down onto Zitao’s skin in microparticles, he turns his head back to the woman laid in the bed in front of him. 

How does the president feel about his mother having nobody else there for her, Zitao wonders? He can’t imagine that the president would be anywhere near pleased about that matter, and he wonders if that, coupled with the guilt built up in himself over Mochou’s death, would explain why the president has made absolutely no attempt to build a better life for himself with another woman and perhaps a few children, should he want them. 

Amidst his observing, Zitao finds himself too curious, for he is not sure when another opportunity like this one will arise, and he quietly slides his seat closer to the side of her bed as though familially, and reaches out to touch her hand. _I’m so sorry that this has happened to you_ , he thinks, hoping to permeate her thoughts with his own telepathically. _I’m so sorry that the world has been cruel to you when you have such a wonderful, successful, beautiful son who needs you very much._

Her skin is wrinkled, a little bit taut in places and plenty malleable in others, and her veins bulge along the back of her hand as though starved and yearning. He doesn’t do more than touch, simply brushing the pad of his thumb over her skin as his expression falls pained, hating to know that somebody he cares for has to have their entire world laid out in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and monitors. He sighs, for tears have begun to gather at his waterlines amidst his thoughts, and the world once again proves to be too cruel for tender-hearted people such as himself.

Exhaling softly, he pulls slightly back, his pressured gaze soft as he watches her sleep, her chest slowly rising and falling as though perhaps too slowly, when he hears a shuffling sound off to the side and doesn’t get any time to piece it together in his mind before it’s followed by a loud, “Who are you?”

He jerks in surprise, for he hadn’t been expecting anybody other than the nurse, and the chair clatters loudly against the ground as he jolts upward and meets the eyes of his boss, looking very displeased and plenty bothered that a stranger had been hovering over his mother like a shadow. As the man’s mother opens her eyes, then, startled by the commotion, Zitao finds himself wordless as his hands tremble in the open air, as though searching for an excuse, when he hears the woman beside him say, “Oh, Yifan, stop it, he wasn’t doing anything.” 

His eyebrows knit together at that, his lips parted behind the mask. Yifan? Is that the president’s name?

Then, the president’s gaze sharpens as he takes several steps into the room as though to get a closer look at him before he falters and stills in the middle of the woman’s room. “You’re that patient from the other day,” the man mutters in displeasure, and Zitao’s throat works in a cottony swallow. 

No, he can’t get caught here. Not like this.

Anxious and brave, Zitao bursts forward, brushing past the president as he dashes out of the door, jogging quickly to his mother’s room and not stopping even as the man’s shoes click against the glossed hallway floor as he calls out a shouted, “Wait!”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Time for your weigh-in, Yingtao,” Qian tells him that morning when he comes to work, and Zitao nods at the command and begins to remove his bulky attire as directed, setting his shoes off to the side beside the scale and removing his jewelry, as well, laying each piece on the nearest vanity. 

The weigh-ins have become routine for him, like clockwork, and they require no effort at all from him to stand on a scale and have Qian measure him and document his progress. Sighing softly, he steps onto the scale in front of the walled mirror and stares at his reflection, having stripped down to his undershorts and his undershirt, merely a tank top he’d worn over his breast pads to help conceal them. He relaxes as Qian’s tape measure slides against his skin as she measures him, recording every tidbit in the folder she keeps about him. “You’re at sixty-one kilograms,” she comments, and Zitao’s eyebrows raise. Has he really lost four kilograms since starting this job mere months ago? “And your waist has slimmed down a little - I don’t know if you can tell, but last month’s weigh-in had your waist at thirty-one and you are now at twenty-nine.” 

“That sounds like a lot,” he mumbles to himself, and Qian chuckles off to the side as the measuring tape slithers away. 

“You’re making good progress,” she confirms. “I think we’ll keep you on the low-fat diet, and we’ll check you again in another month, yeah?”

Zitao nods, for he cannot say no. This was the requirement for working here, and he is very much aware of his obligation to follow the rules and lose the weight that he was assigned to lose. As he lifts his undershirt when Qian turns away, he finds himself frowning as his fingers meet the very beginning of lines along his upper torso - the telltale ridges of his ribcage beginning to peek through. Zitao wonders how the girls around here survive if all the president does is starve them like this, and require them to shed weight to this degree. He knows it must only be a matter of time before somebody’s health deteriorates from these strict dieting rules, and he can only hope that it won’t be him. 

Being alone in the studio this morning aside from the coordinators, Zitao finds more comfort in unchanging and redressing out in the open aside from within the shoe closet, and he begins to feel proud of himself - is this character development, he wonders? Is he beginning to become more comfortable with this side of himself to a point where he is no longer petrified to show his masculine imperfections?

“Yingtao,” Qian calls out, and Zitao turns around as he’s been called to see his coordinator stood by the sofas with a mobile phone in her hand and an informed look in her eye. “The president just called - he wants to see you up in his office.”

Lips parting, a bolt of worry floods through him. It’s probably nothing, but what if it is? What else has he fucked up now? Knowing himself and his tendency to mess everything up, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were being reprimanded for something like taking too long of a lunch break without having realized. 

Courteously, however, he thanks her and bows, as he turns on his heel to head out of the studio and toward the elevators. Surely he’s not in any kind of trouble, right? Surely he’s done nothing wrong since the last time he’d fought with Jessica - he’d been off his foot for six weeks as he had been medically instructed, yet had continued to take pictures and sell public prints as his job requires, and he’s sure there’s nowhere else for him to be promoted to - so what must it be that the president wants to see him for? 

Taking a deep breath, he knocks on the frosted glass doors to the president’s office and bites down on his bottom lip when the president gives him verbalized permission to enter.

When he enters, the president’s office is in exactly the same state and shape that he has always seen it in, where the president is sitting alone at his desk with not a single accompanier lingering around him, and Zitao’s fingers instinctively knit at his front. “You wanted to speak to me, sir?” He asks, and the president glances up at him from over the top rim of his reading glasses, registering that Zitao has arrived before he stands smoothly from his seat and gives him a nod. 

“I have something for you,” the president says, and Zitao’s eyes widen just a little bit. Is it some kind of reward, he wonders? Curiously, he steps forward, growing closer, before stopping just inches from the edge of the president’s desk, as he awaits this something that he is being given. 

The president, as handsome as he is today with his rectangular-lensed reading glasses and his eggplant suit with silver latticework, bends to take something out of one of the drawers in his desk, and when he brings it up to hold in his hand as he closes the drawer, Zitao sees that it is a folder with several documents inside. “To make up, to you, for what happened in Shanghai,” the president tells him coolly, meeting his eye over the rim of his glasses, “I am attending a business banquet this Friday evening to meet with several designers to discuss the spring release of next year. I am required, by courtship protocol, to bring a plus-one to the event. Seeing as how you had to be removed from the show and therefore removed from the event, I would like for you to attend this function with me to make up for it.”

Hands going numb, Zitao’s lips part as his eyes widen, absolutely positive, this time, that he is dreaming. “A… a banquet?” He asks dumbly. “With you?”

“Yes, a banquet,” the president confirms with a flat expression. “A place where food is served as colleagues converse about business alterations.”

Taken by surprise, Zitao finds himself unable to take his eyes off of the invitation slip that lies within the folder as the president hands it to him, his to take and his to keep. This seems far too intimate of an event to attend simply to make up for having to sit out of a show because of a fractured ankle. Yet, for everything that he has had to experience in the past few months regarding the president’s tender-hearted past and his personal bias, Zitao wouldn’t exactly put it past him to masquerade a date under the guise that it’s a business trip. “Sir,” he breathes out, his manicured fingers stuttering around the edge of the sheet of paper. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Of course it is,” the president responds flatly, and Zitao feels his cheeks flushing at the underlying tones within the gesture of inviting him privately to a banquet. “When regarding outings that will spur positive outcomes on my company, it is very common for me to need to borrow models to wear my products whilst there - this is bribery, Miss Huang, for ingenuity is one of my strongest suits.”

Biting softly on his rouged lower lip, Zitao knows very well that not only are company business trips not uncommon, for each public show that the company holds could be considered a business trip, but that something specifically privatized for two people could not be considered a business trip - this is a date, whether the president wants to admit it or not. 

“Do you object?” The president asks him, then, in a slightly softer tone, and Zitao realizes he must have been silent for quite a long time, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. “If you are not comfortable with accepting this request, then I will gladly find somebody else to attend the event.”

“No,” he says quickly, his voice perhaps too thick, “I - I would like to go. Thank you, sir.”

“I thank you on behalf of your agreement, Miss Huang,” the president praises him cordially, his lips pressed together in what Zitao can see is an attempt at a business grin, merely a shadow of the real thing. “Thursday when you arrive for work, you will find a packet waiting for you in your studio, within which will be instructions you are to follow regarding the formality of dress as well as your means of departure - in regards to this, you are to depart with me as well as arrive with me.”

At this, his eyes widen, the paper whispering against his fingers. “Mr. Wu?” He asks quietly, his voice merely a shy little peep. “You’re not insisting that we both take the same car, are you? Isn’t that quite intimate?”

“Of course I am, and of course it is not,” the man says as he adjusts his reading glasses where they’ve begun to slide down the breadth of his nose. “This is a plus-one event to discuss my brand - therefore, having my plus-one arrive either separately from me and having to wait for my plus-one to arrive or vice versa, or to arrive separately and be dressed in uncoordinated colors, looks disarranged and unprofessional. Additionally, on Thursday, you will receive a package in your studio along with the instruction packet. This will contain a coordinated outfit for you to don at this event, for there will be tens of hundreds of localized designers looking at you as a product - as my product, and as my product, you are to be dressed accordingly to represent me. Do you understand?”

More than likely blushing, he forces himself to nod. “Yes, sir,” he says breathily, taking a step back to give himself space away from the desk in order to bow. “I look forward to attending.”

“Remember, Miss Huang,” the president says before he leaves. “I will be picking you up at the address that you have provided me with within your application by the assigned time that will be in your instructional packet. If you are not ready by that time on the dot, I am leaving without you and you will not attend, for you are a plus-one.”

At the thought of the man driving to Zitao’s little apartment and picking him up privately as though taking him out on a date for the night, his heartbeat quickens, thumping quietly in his chest. “Yes, sir. I will see you Friday evening.”

No matter how hard he tries to distract himself with the shoot he’s scheduled with Dasom and Younghee, Zitao cannot draw his thoughts away from the anxiety of wanting Friday evening to arrive right now, and when Qian asks if he’s doing alright and if there’s anything on his mind, he finds himself far too afraid to tell anyone about his new development and his newfound scheduled plans for the end of this week.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“So, I have some news,” Zitao tells him as they converse on either side of the boy’s kitchen island, Zitao’s forearm resting comfortably on the cool granite while his best friend rests nonchalantly against the counter beside the refrigerator, “but you gotta like, grab a chair, or something, because you’re not going to believe this.”

Under instruction, his best friend nods, and dramatically sinks himself into a standing-seated position, as though sitting on an invisible chair, and Zitao snorts at the sight. “Alright,” his best friend smirks, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m ready for the news.”

“Okay,” Zitao exhales slowly, theatrically using his hands to visually calm himself down and instruct his own breathing. “So, you know how my boss is kind-of… really scary?”

Flippantly, his best friend nods. “And also really hot, but continue.”

“Okay, well,” the boy preps himself for his big news, rubbing his palms together expectantly, “I may have… kind-of… gotten asked on a date by him but not really?”

Since it wasn’t actually a date but was an invitation to attend an event with him alone just like a date would inquire to be, Zitao finds more comfort in calling the kettle black rather than beating around the bush under the guise that it’s a so-called business event. Although young and inexperienced in a great number of things, Zitao is not stupid. Therefore, as expected, his best friend’s jaw drops and his eyes widen extensively, far enough to where Zitao begins to feel concerned that they may fall out of his sockets, and he can’t exactly say that he doesn’t blame him, for Zitao still feels as though he himself is asleep and thereafter, dreaming. “You’re fucking kidding,” his best friend expresses in awe, and Zitao presses his lips together as he shakes his head, not believing even his own memories in regards to this. “Wait - so - he really asked you out?”

“Okay, well, not exactly,” Zitao clarifies quickly, and his best friend stands up from his stressed, seated position. “My boss asked me to attend a business event this Friday evening, but it’s a professional banquet and it’s only the two of us. It’s not even with several people from the company, it’s just me and my boss.”

“Holy shit,” Luhan smiles, laughing. “You’re going on a date, look at you. I’m so proud of you - my little baby is growing up, oh no. He doesn’t need me as a rent-a-boyfriend anymore.”

“We’re not dating, don’t get ahead of yourself just yet,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “My boss is giving me a package at work on Thursday with an outfit he picked himself for me to wear because he said it’s more professional to be color-coordinated with your chauffeur, especially as a plus-one. What if it’s really cute? What if it’s sexy? What do I do?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” Luhan grins at him, his expression suddenly shit-eating and snide. “Friday? You come home from work, and I’ll be here by the time you get home. I was supposed to close this Friday, but my boss can suck my fucking ass because I’m helping you get ready and I’m doing your makeup whether he likes it or not, and that’s final. I’ll have you looking so good, your boss will probably forget how to fucking breathe when he sees you, Tao.”

“I’ve never been to a formal banquet,” he admits in a small voice. “What am I supposed to do there? How am I supposed to act?”

His best friend inhales through the nose, preparing his thoughts for expulsion. “Well,” he begins, “I’ve been to banquets before - some casual with family, and one time I went to one with one of my friends, which was really expensive and prestigious. They’re get-togethers, really, just with pre-organized and pre-paid dinners as well as alcohol and usually live entertainment. The last one I went to had this really beautiful, talented jazz singer who stood in the forefront of the room and sang the whole time. I can’t imagine how boring it must be to just sing for hours on end and not be allowed to stop.”

Food. Alcohol. Music. To Zitao, it sounds like a party, just much more mundane and less provocative, but does that make it less of a date? He isn’t necessarily sure. 

“So,” he begins to gather his thoughts, taking bits and pieces and patching them together to form a basic acquiescence, “it’s a date, then.”

Luhan snorts. “A poorly-disguised one, too. Besides, it’s probably against work policy to get involved in intimate relationships, so maybe your boss is trying to make a move without really making a move. Or, hey, maybe he just needs a little push to admit he likes you, or something - trust me, if I get you ready on Friday, you’ll have him kissing you on the asshole by the end of the day.”

Zitao nods, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, for he does not know which would be the more reasonable path of action to take, to assume that the president has feelings for him or to assume otherwise, for he knows very well which one he would prefer to take, but would his preferred road to walk down be the wisest? “I’m just nervous,” is what he responds with, for he knows that he could be getting himself too hyped up and could have too high of expectations for what this event may entail. 

“It’s alright, you’ll be fine. At least, you won’t die,” his best friend smirks. “God, I’m hungry. Can we go out to eat? My treat, I promise. Don’t even think about paying, mister.”

Pouting, Zitao had begun to reach for his wallet that lies in his back pocket, pressed against his clothed flesh. Despite having his credit cards and some spare change which has been designated as gas money, he knows that his accounts are constantly drained, as every cent he makes is taken by the hospital before he even gets to look at his earnings. “Fine,” he chastises, wanting, for once, to not feel like a selfish mooch by taking all of his best friend’s money. “I, um… I should probably dress up, right?”

Letting the words glide in the air, his best friend snorts, having only briefly mulled it over. “Of course you should. Out in public, you’re Yingtao, now. Zitao only exists in this apartment and in the hospital. Besides, I would be insulted if you _didn’t_ partake in letting me rent my princess of a boyfriend for a night in his prettiest attire.”

From the gaudy flattery, Zitao finds himself grimacing, his nose scrunching as his lips curl. “You’re so gross,” he expresses with a brief little laugh. “Fine. You can take Yingtao out on a date, but make sure you return her home by eleven.”

Catchpenny by nature, then, his best friend shoots him a wink as he turns the corner around the little wall beside the island. “No promises,” he says, and Zitao finds himself sighing and shaking his head as he slinks off of his stool to head toward his own bedroom as his best friend gussies up in Zitao’s one and only spare bathroom. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
“I’m going to use the restroom, alright?” He asks carefully, lifting his cloth napkin from his lap to place it on the table as he makes a move to leave the booth. 

Not at all restrictive, his best friend nods as he slices into his filet once more. “Don’t fall in,” is all he offers in a humorous tone, and Zitao snorts as he slides free from the confinement of the booth, his rosy satin dress gathered in his hands as he stands and allows the fabric to flounce down around his knees. Gluttonous and self-indulgent, Luhan had taken him out to one of the most expensive restaurants around, an hour away from Zitao’s apartment and quite frankly, located in one of the most extravagant and gaudy cities Zitao has ever seen, littered with bright lights and sky-high buildings and filled to the brim with taxicabs and pedestrians on foot. 

He allows himself into the women’s bathroom with shame in his gaze, knowing very well that he does not belong here and that he would very well be arrested if anybody knew, but he is not exactly comfortable urinating around masculine-presenting men who stand at urinals with their flaccid cocks hanging out of their zippers. To even try to wait in a stall until every last man had disappeared would give Zitao far too much anxiety, and so with his own mental state in mind, he enters one of the last stalls toward the end and locks it behind him as he hikes his dress up to undo his underwear-tie duo and allow himself relief. 

Truth be told, as though having grown used to this sobriquet act, Zitao no longer feels very uncomfortable in the form that he so commonly dons out in public. He has begun to change outfits outside of the shoe closet, now finally somewhat comfortable with not having a phallic bulge when he tucks it back and being accepted with an _unusually_ flat bosom. Truth be told, it’s honestly not all that bad pretending to be a woman, and Zitao kind of likes the rush that it gives him to be somebody else. 

Finally relieved, he lets out a content little sigh as he flushes and exits the stall, beelining with casual, clacking steps toward the sinks as his heeled shoes resonate on the glossy floor. He must say - as someone who has very little to no experience being in exquisitely high-class restaurants and venues such as this one, that they have absolutely breathtaking bathrooms, everything cleaned and polished to perfection with automated toilets and additional bidets, as well as halogen lighting and moisturizing peach-blossom scented hand soap in dispensers. Zitao’s favorite part, though, definitely has to be the addition of the basket of individually carved hand soaps that sits at the forefront of the countertop directly in the middle, filled in a delicate heap with pastel shell-shaped soaps, some clamshells, and some conches all in pretty pinks and light blues. Entranced, he finds himself falling in love with how pretty women’s bathrooms can be, and wishes that men’s bathrooms didn’t have to be quite so boring, sometimes. 

It’s when he’s washing his hands beneath the tap that the bathroom door swings open and another woman steps in, for Zitao watches his own reflection in the mirror and pays her no mind, likely an older lady here to relieve herself and powder her nose, when he hears her speak to him as she says, “Yingtao?”

Surprised that this lady must know him, he pulls his hands from the tap’s stream as it automatically turns off and glances over, a little smile spreading across his lips. “Hey,” he grins as Baekhee approaches him in a pretty double-denim set, a cropped little top with a matching form-fitting skirt that flares out into soft waves around her mid-thighs, he hair high upon her head as the curls waterfall down to her collarbones. “What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that,” Baekhee giggles, leaning a hip against the polished countertop. “How have you been? I haven’t gotten to see you much since the Shanghai show.”

“I’m doing well,” he nods. “My ankle is all healed, so I can use it now and walk around in tall shoes and stuff again. Sorry, I hadn’t been expecting you - I was just having dinner with my friend.”

At the mention of a friend, one of the girl’s eyebrows raises, her freckles warm beneath the lights. “A friend?” She asks with a curious little grin, peering too deeply into what implications could be made about the situation. “What kind of friend?”

“Just a friend, I promise,” Zitao laughs a little bit, for it feels nice to laugh with someone and not worry about being caught. 

“Oh, alright,” she nods, and Zitao can tell by the shiftiness in her expression that she doesn’t fully believe him, and he finds it cute and humorous that she is so easy to read. “So - do you have feelings for anybody else, then?”

Yes, he does. Zitao knows he does, but he also knows that he can’t very well talk about it with just about anybody in the world, as though he were discussing the weather that day and _yeah, it is quite windy today, the whole world almost saw my underpants._ Rather than answering, he grants her with silence as he reaches for a disposable hand towel from a basket beside the sinks, simply a white, fluffy towel with a corresponding disposal bin for towels to be washed. As his wordlessness floats along the air, he realizes too late that it could have very well been the most unwise move to make, as his silence begins to speak volumes to her. 

“You do,” she comments gently, her voice very soft, and when Zitao glances back up with his fingers knitted together as he readies himself to explain to her that he had merely been afraid to tell her, she is watching him with a knowing, contentful gaze, not at all malevolent. “...It’s Mr. Wu, isn’t it?”

“No,” he responds with immediately, instinctually moving to tell her that she’s wrong when he knows that she is, in fact, not. “I mean… um… how did you know that?”

“Yingtao,” she deadpans, then, and Zitao tucks his bottom lip back into his mouth as he begins to nervously pick at the polish on his nails. “Do you two have any idea how obvious you make it? The president is _exponentially_  more soft around you at any given time than anybody else, always giving you more leeway than usual, and you - you blush every single time one of us mentions the president’s crush on you. You like him back, don’t you?”

Anxious and unsure, he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he worries. “He just kind of seemed like that with everybody, you know? I mean… I think I like him, but…” 

“You like him,” his friend coos in joy, her heart overwhelmed for the new soon-to-be-couple in her own lackadaisical mind. “Hey - is there anything I can do to help get the two of you together? I swear I’ll do anything - you name it!”

However, Zitao shakes his head, for he must put an end to this silly charade. “Baek, I really can’t. Even if he does like me back, I can’t do that to him, not when he’s still hurting over losing Mochou. I wouldn’t want him to force himself to replace the memories of her just to get rid of the pain. What happens if he doesn’t want to forget her? I mean, I wouldn’t mind loving someone who additionally needs to love someone from their past, but I don’t want him to hurt himself by forcing himself to forget all about her just for me.”

The girl sighs, then, for she hadn’t thought of that. Zitao, on the other hand, thinks about this kind of thing constantly, especially when regarding just what he is going to do about the subtle hints that the man has been dropping to him; for example, the banquet, as one, and the special personal apologies he had received after spraining his ankle, as another. Yet - are they exactly proof that the president likes him, or is that merely his way of expressing guilt? “I didn’t think of it that way,” Baekhee tells him, and Zitao gives her a compassionate little nod. “I swear, that guy is so hard to read sometimes - I mean, one moment I think he’s being obvious about his romantic feelings, and then the next he’s just as straight-edged as he had always been. Ah, forgive me, Yingtao - I’m probably taking up a lot of your time.”

“No, it’s alright,” he offers her a weakened smile. “It’s only my friend and me here, so it’s not like I have a full party waiting for me to return. What about you? Do you have a party to return to?”

Disdained, the girl shakes her head. “No, I’m here by myself. I was supposed to be on a blind date, but my date never showed up.”

Zitao’s lips part, then, his jaw dropping as a bolt of empathy buzzes through him. “They stood you up?” He rhetorically asks her. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, that’s the worst. Do you want to come sit at my table? I’m sure my friend won’t mind.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,” she giggles sheepishly. “I couldn’t take up your table that way.”

“No, really, we have extra room,” he insists. “It’s a sizable booth with just the two of us, there’s plenty of room for you. Come on, don’t eat dinner alone.”

Innocently, the girl’s cheeks flush as she regards the situation they’re in now, and seems to be surprised that Zitao would stick up for her like that. As someone who has done it many times, Zitao thinks nothing of it, but perhaps to her, it speaks volumes about the character that stands before her. “Okay,” she grins happily, her cheekbones gleaming beneath the bathroom lights. 

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to my friend,” Zitao smiles contentedly as he walks her out of the bathroom, holding the door for her as they stride back toward the dining parlor. “I’m sure he’s going to love you.”

As Zitao fully expected, Luhan is still very much digging into his highly-priced meal, taking miniscule bites in order to savor it before he is forced to spend his money as a consumer. It doesn’t shock him at all that Luhan is not normally the type to wait for someone to return from the restroom in order to finish his meal, for Luhan is paying for all of it and has plenty of time to kill even if Zitao had stayed in there all night. For hogging the table for so long, he would have simply thrown in a jaw-droppingly plentiful tip.

When he returns to the table with Baekhee on his heels, his best friend glances up as he’s ingesting a forkful of his meat. “Han,” he says as the man looks up from his plate, his shoulders straightening. “This is Baekhee from work. Baek, this is my best friend, Luhan.”

“Nice to meet you,” the brunette strides forward to extend a gloved hand to Luhan to take, and he does in an equally theatrical manner that Zitao had seen at the airport when introducing Minseo, as the blonde takes the girl’s little hand and gently kisses her gloved knuckles. 

“A pleasure to meet you, too,” Luhan smirks. “You two work together?”

“Yeah, she was one of my roommates when we were in Shanghai,” Zitao explains. “She’s going to eat with us because she was supposed to be on a blind date, but her date stood her up.”

Comically, Luhan’s eyes light up, then, as he lays his silverware down onto his plate. “Bitch, me fucking _too_. Have a seat, welcome to the singles' party.”

Giggling, Baekhee admires him with curved eyebrows as though unable to believe what she is seeing, but Zitao reassures her that this is perfectly normal, and Luhan is every bit as gentlemanly and courteous as Baekhee takes a seat beside Zitao on their side of the booth, and even lets her get out of her share of the tip.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“They gave me a treatment in radiology today,” his mother tells him as he’s cutting up her chicken breast, and the fork he’d been holding accidentally squeaks against the plate as the statement sticks to his skin when he realizes how out of left field it is.

“They did?” He asks, a little bit skeptical. He hadn’t gotten extra assistance for this month since they had never called Luhan back after their altercation regarding suddenly dropping him from the account, and he would have expected to have been told by Doctor Kim that they were going to have to skip another treatment for this month because there was a deficit. Then again, the president _did_ give him more than enough, but would it have been enough to carry into this month, as well? Zitao doesn’t remember, and therefore, doesn’t know, either. “I thought…”

“Mm?” His mother hums beside him, likely stumped as to why he’s stopped cutting up her dinner. “You thought what?”

Oh - that’s right, his mother was never made aware of the situation because there would have been nothing she could have done about it had she known. Zitao, intent on keeping her as impartial as he can, shakes his head and resumes cutting up her chicken to hand her a bite of it. “Nothing,” he tells her, forcing a smile upon his lips. “Here, I’ve cut it all up for you. I’m gonna go call Luhan, okay? I won’t be gone long.”

With food in her mouth, his mother waves him off with a passive hand, clearly unbothered by his stepping out momentarily to make a phone call. 

He supposes, as he takes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks its screen, that maybe it isn’t all that strange - perhaps they added Luhan to the account once more and simply had forgotten to tell either of them, or maybe had even been testing this month’s payment as confirmation that Luhan’s account’s reentry did, in fact, go through successfully. Or, maybe there were funds left over from the president’s payment which he had handed to him, and maybe there had been enough left over to make up for the deficit left behind after Zitao’s taxes.

Nevertheless, he presses the phone to his ear as he leans back against the brick, the cool outside breeze kissing his skin as he waits for the rings to end. When they do, his best friend answers the phone typically, as usual, likely expecting Zitao to ask for his presence at the hospital to keep him and his mother company, but Zitao has other matters to attend to. “Han, can I ask you a question?” He speaks as he chews nervously on his bottom lip. “Did you, uh - did you ever get the payment for mom’s treatments figured out?”

“ _No_ ,” his best friend replies after a moment, as though either thinking or being preoccupied with something. “ _They never called me back yet to ask for my bank info in order to take me down as the assistive method of payment. Why?_ ” 

“Well,” he starts. “They gave her a treatment today. You know, one of her regular treatments - except, nobody approached me or contacted me about needing payment for the deficit that is naturally left behind after my taxes are taken out, which means there has to be money somewhere in there that they are using to help fund the treatments, because they made me skip the last treatment since there was that deficit. So, I just didn’t know if maybe you’d gotten everything sorted out and if that was why they gave mom a treatment today.”

“ _No, I didn’t hear anything, and if I did, you would have known about it, Tao. I would have told you_ ,” his best friend explains on the other line, and Zitao can hear the clinking of dishes in the din of the background murmur, a sign that Luhan is still at work. “ _Are you sure you didn’t get some kind of a raise, or something?_ ” 

“No, I didn’t,” he sighs. “I mean, it’s not a big deal, I’m just confused as to where this extra money is coming from, you know? I’m just grateful they gave mom another treatment.”

“ _I mean_ ,” the man replies on the other line, “ _do you want me to talk to the hospital about it and see what’s up? It might have to wait a little while, though, ‘cause my shift doesn’t end for another two hours and twenty-six minutes._ ”

“Could you?” He asks. “I mean, I could do it myself since I’m here, but I don’t want to leave mom. Are you coming tonight?”

“ _I might be able to stop for a short while once my shift ends but I can’t stay for long - I’m opening tomorrow. Anyway, I’ll let you go, kiddo, okay? I’ll call the financial department later and ask them what’s good, and then I’ll get back to you. Alright?_ ”

Zitao agrees and thanks him for his efforts, for it is not a dire emergency to know right this very second what is going on regarding Zitao’s payments, but he also would like to know sometime soon before it is taken too far and he ends up in trouble for tax fraud, or something, if that’s where his tax money is going rather than to the government’s revenue corporation. He hangs up and slides his phone back into his pocket and strides back into the hospital, a little bit more confused, and yet a little bit more relieved than he had been. So now he’s managed to successfully rule out that Luhan had been hiding it from him all this time, but that leaves him with only more questions and even fewer answers. 

When he returns to his mother’s room, then, she is halfway through his meal and has her eyes trained on the television, and when Zitao glances up, he notices that she’s watching what looks like a reality sitcom. “What are you watching, mom?” He asks out of curiosity as he sits back down into his chair beside her bed.

“I’m not sure,” she tells him with a little laugh before she feeds herself another spoonful of peas. “Would you like to watch it, too, or would you like me to change it?”

Happy to see that his mother is involving him in her thought processes and even thinks of him when engaging in activities, Zitao smiles and shakes his head. “No, this is fine,” he tells her as he scoots himself a little bit closer and leans his head down onto her raised shoulder, and she chuckles beneath his cheek and reaches up a hand to pat his head affectionately.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
When Zitao comes to, it’s with a short, startled jolt and a buzzing in his rear pocket, and he realizes that it’s long since fallen dark and that his mother is additionally asleep beneath him, her head lolled to one side as she snores softly, and Zitao has no idea how long he’s been asleep or what time it is right now.

Frowning, he reaches into his rear pocket to search for just what is causing the incessant vibrations, and he’s not too surprised to see that it’s an incoming call on his cell phone which had woken him up. Politely and silently, he stands from his bedside chair and strides through the foyer of the hospital to the outside lot in order to take the call, and he presses the phone to his ear as the crisp nighttime air whistles around him. “Hello?” He says in a little bit of a rush, unsure of how long the caller had been waiting for him to answer. 

“ _Hey, Tao?_ ” He hears on the other line and blurrily makes the connection that it’s his best friend’s voice, which makes him sober up immediately as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes. “ _Hey, I called finances a little while ago like you asked me to._ ”

“Oh,” he mutters. “Sorry, I, um… I fell asleep. What time is it?”

“ _It’s ten thirty_ ,” his best friend snorts at him on the other line. “ _What, did you forget how to read the digital time on your phone or something? Anyway, sorry that took me so long, I had to be on hold for God knows how fuckin’ long - a ridiculous amount of time to wait, that’s as much as I know. At first, they gave me a hard time about me asking to know what was up with the account because they were trying to say I wasn’t legally eligible to be given information regarding a bank account that’s not mine. Then I had to yell at them for a while - like, twenty minutes or something, and then they decided to start talking when I volunteered to come down there with fully-documented proof of my past as a donor._ ”

“What did they say?” Zitao asks. “Did they give you any info?”

“ _Well, they told me they received a different donor about two months back_ ,” is what his best friend tells him, and Zitao’s brow knits downward in confusion. He hadn’t asked anybody to volunteer to be a method of payment other than his best friend.

“I didn’t tell anybody to donate money,” he says flatly. “Are you sure they didn’t just accidentally mess up your information in the system and think you were somebody else?”

“ _No, they were clear that it wasn’t me_ ,” Luhan responds. “ _They told me after I verified my identity that the donor’s name was Wu Yifan - do you know anybody by that name? I had no idea who they were talking about, but I figured, maybe you’d gotten a friend from work or something to help pitch in and maybe they’d taken them over me, ‘cause life never makes any fuckin' sense -_ ”

“Han,” he stops him, and his best friend’s voice goes silent on the other line as Zitao’s heartbeat rings in his ears. He’s heard that name before - he knows that name. There’s no way he would ever be able to mistake who that name belonged to. “That’s… that’s my boss.”

As the realization sinks into his bones, both ends of the call fall completely silent, and Zitao finds it very difficult to wrap his mind around the thought that his boss went out of his way to help pitch in for his mother’s treatments. “ _Holy shit,_ ” his best friend quietly expresses on the other line. “ _You’re joking. That’s the same guy who invited you on a date this Friday, right?_ ”

“Again, it’s not a date,” Zitao clarifies carefully. “Han, what do I do about this? I… I didn’t ask for him to pitch in for me. What am I even supposed to say to him?”

“ _Suck his dick and thank him for the money_ ,” his best friend jokes, but Zitao isn’t laughing. “ _I mean, if you’re really not comfortable with it, Tao, then just talk to him about it. Tell him to back the fuck out._ ”

“I’m gonna go,” he interjects, ignoring his best friend’s statement. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he hangs up, he feels a knot begin to form in the base of his throat as he tries to swallow down the weight of the newfound information. It doesn’t bode very well within him, and Zitao can’t help the way his heartbeat quickens as he thinks about the president acting selflessly enough to share his bank account with him to help Zitao’s mother stay alive. If he truly didn’t know any better, he might even dare say that this could be considered another instance of the president’s bias - but Zitao has to think about this rationally. Maybe this is referring to the funds left over after the president had paid for the deficit, for that would make sense, right?

Unsure of which way to turn and of what to do, Zitao heads out to his car to return home with confusion in his heart and worry in his eyes.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
There’s a bubble package waiting for him in the studio on the vanity-side table, topped off with an adhered manilla packet. Zitao finds himself smiling slightly as his pulse jitters, for time is now beginning to rapidly shorten his average everyday life and the wait for the banquet tomorrow night, which Zitao finds himself uncharacteristically excited for. 

Qian gives him a knowing little wink when he strides toward his gifts, and he wonders if Qian had been informed of what they are, also. Nevertheless, she does not mention to him whether she is aware or not, and Zitao gleefully pockets his package and his packet in his bag and finds himself floating on anxiety-induced excitement for the rest of the day. 

After he finishes his shoot that morning, he finds that he has another one later that afternoon, and until then, Zitao has a plethora of time to eat lunch and check the bulletin boards just in case he has any other assignments he isn’t aware of in foreign studios.

When he gets to the rightmost board by the entrance, however, he’s a little unfortunately sour to see that Jessica is also at the board, busy gazing up at the rapidly-updating electronic screen, and he does his best to avoid her peering eyes as he checks on his assignment status. He has no immediate assignments, but it does show that he is scheduled to be in Studio G at eleven forty-five -

“What do you have there in your bag?” She asks beside him, and it takes him off guard as he glances over, her eyes narrowed disapprovingly at him as they flicker down to his shoulder bag, clearly concerned with his bubble package and the packet sticking minimally over the top rim of the bag. 

“Things,” he tells her plainly, not a whole farce but not the whole truth, neither, because it’s not really any of her business either way. “Why?”

Nonchalant, however, she shrugs. “No reason. I was just wondering who might have given you a package. I mean, we work at a modeling firm, not a post office - but maybe you didn’t realize that. Sorry.”

“What’s your problem with me?” He asks bitterly, sighing as he turns away from the board and watches her cross her arms over her white-clad bosom. “I even took the blame for you trying to kill me back in Shanghai - was that not enough for you? Why do you care what I have in my bag? It’s not yours.”

Sugary sweet, she raises her manicured little hands as her eyelids glimmer beneath the lights. “Hey, I was just curious why that packet sticking out of your bag has _Property of KW Enterprises_ on it. I mean, it’s not exactly plausible for you to have been scouted for a multinational assignment linked to other departments, so I’m just wondering why you have a company packet, then.”

“Why do I owe you an explanation of that?” Zitao questions. “Why do you give a shit? Can’t you just go pay attention to your own work?”

“I’m just wondering,” Jessica crows sweetly, “why it might be that the president no longer wants to sleep with me. I mean, ever since you came here, he’s been acting all weird around me, so _surely_ you must know something about it. I just want to know if he’s using you for his personal pleasure over me, and why that might be.”

“Look,” Zitao presses, annoyed. “For the last time, I am _not_ fucking the president, so if he decided to cut off his little charade with you, I’m not the person to come crying to about it because I have nothing to do with that. Second of all, what I get from the company is none of your business, and it will never be your business because I work _just_ as hard to be here as you do. Thirdly, if you’re so fucking pressed that I get exactly the same rights as you, then why don’t you go ask your boyfriend why he invited me to the company banquet tomorrow night instead of you?”

Taken aback, Jessica’s face falls a little as her jaw drops, lips parting, and Zitao’s skin has become hot from the cloud of his anger. “He,” she starts to say, “he invited _you_?”

Pressing his lips together, he nods, and her eyebrows begin to curve upward in disdain, yet Zitao ignores it for it is not his problem. “Yeah, but you probably would have known that already if you minded your own business and asked the president about his business rather than me.”

Pissed off, he storms away from her as he heads to the commissary for a drink, his heels clicking loudly on the polished floor. No matter what, nothing that Jessica could do or say would ruin Zitao’s floaty mood in preparation for the banquet tomorrow, for this would be his first quote-unquote _date_ in several years, and Zitao finds himself both excited and very nervous.

And despite being in a bad mood from having to listen to more of Jessica’s shit, Zitao knows very well that he isn’t going to let it ruin his evening tomorrow, for it will just be he and the president with not a care in the world for others uninvolved. 

Grinning to himself, he slides his bag from his shoulder to reach for his wallet to buy himself an isotonic drink from the beverage vending machine. Nothing is going to ruin his week anymore - he will make sure of it.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“I’m nervous.”

Calmly, his best friend hushes him with a soft whisper as he rouges the boy’s cheeks, a soft red shade to compliment his outfit as well as the dark brick tones in his eyeshadow. Luhan had started his makeup nearly an hour ago, practically the exact second that Zitao had gotten off of work and had walked through the door had Luhan yanked him aside and sat him down and had begun to remove that day’s makeup with a wipe to start anew. “Don’t worry,” his best friend tells him with a flat expression, far too concentrated on what he is doing. “You’re looking flawless, believe me. What time is your boyfriend coming for you, again?”

“Seven,” Zitao says carefully, barely moving his lips so he doesn’t mess up what Luhan is doing. “And he’s not my boyfriend, for the last time.”

“Yeah, yeah, save it, Cinderella,” his best friend tisks, shaking his head as he chuckles. “Alright, I’m gonna pop some eyelashes on you and then we’re going to get you dressed. You’ve got ten minutes.”

“ _Ten minutes_?” Zitao screeches in surprise before his best friend winces at the noise. “Han, I’m never going to be ready in ten minutes! My boss is going to kill me!”

“No he’s not, because we’re almost done,” Luhan reassures him as he draws a line of glue on the band of his false eyelashes. “You’ll be fine. I do need you to close your eyes, though.”

Zitao does as he’s told, his nervousness amplifying as each second seems like a minute and it feels as though if he were to simply blink, he would have missed an hour. What happens if everything tonight goes according to plan and Zitao does come off as successfully passing and manages to be more attractive than usual? What if the president decides to do something that would make his feelings obvious - like get handsy, or even flirt with him? Zitao isn’t sure his heart would be able to take it.

“Alright,” his best friend mumbles in a finalizing tone, and Zitao safely assumes that he’s done. “Okay, I need you to go put on your dress so I can help you zip it up.”

He nods and grabs his bubble package to head to the bathroom and change, all the while making every action twice as rushed as normal, for the president may arrive any second now. Zitao finds himself slightly short of breath as his anxiety increases at the thought of how the president may look crosses his mind - what if he’s absolutely breathtaking? What if Zitao finds it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes off of him?

Nevertheless, he forces himself to take a calming breath as he leaves his bathroom, his shoes clacking on his hardwood floor. As his best friend turns on his heel to watch Zitao approach, his eyebrows raise as he expresses fascination, impressed how well Zitao manages to gussy up as a beautiful woman. “Wow,” he smiles as the boy approaches before stopping several feet from him, his fingers nervously knitted together. “You look fucking incredible.”

Zitao somewhat agrees; the dress pools elegantly on the ground around him, a deep, rich scarlet ornamented in intricate golden detailing, metallic brocade outlining the hem before curtaining up the front into a delicate, pretty taper where it ends around Zitao’s knees; the bodice is detailed similarly, baroque swirls decorating the entirety of Zitao’s bosom where the swirls taper into the shape of white-winged doves, and at the apex of where the two halves symmetrically meet, lay the president’s initials in the same golden, metallic embroidery. Zitao’s favorite part, if he does say so himself, is the beautifully crystallized mesh that outlines the mandarin-style collar at his throat, sparkly and outlined in pale gold and Zitao finds the combination between the deep red and the gold to be absolutely gorgeous. “How does it look?” He asks out of insecurity, for he does not know if this style of dress looks alright on his body shape or not. 

“Beautiful,” his best friend grins, striding forward and lifting his hands to fiddle with Zitao’s hair. “I made sure to put your hair up because of the collar on the dress - updos tend to look prettier with higher collars since they make you look taller and make your neck look longer.”

“I like it,” he says softly, and his best friend chuckles before him. His hair had been pulled back into a sleek bun on the back of his head with the top layers having been braided for security; his bangs had been curled over his forehead, a few loose outlying strands having been pulled free to delicately frame his face. As a finishing and additionally an overly eye-catching touch, Luhan had embellished the boy’s braids in over a dozen tiny little diamonds, glassy and sparkling every time the boy turns his head.

“You look fucking divine,” Luhan fawns over him. “I’m serious - this is probably the best you’ve ever looked.”

“The president picked this out himself,” Zitao mutters quietly, mostly to himself but additionally to his best friend, his curious hands smoothing over the soft, dulled satin, likely purposefully mellowed so as to not accentuate his bodily curves too much, “since he wanted me to match with him. I hope he likes it on me.”

Luhan snorts. “If he doesn’t, I’m going to kick his heterosexual ass so hard, he won’t know what hit him.”

As Zitao turns and lets his best friend finish zipping his dress up his back, there’s a knock at Zitao’s front door, and his heart practically drops into his stomach. Oh no. “He’s here,” Zitao hisses quietly, suddenly petrified. “Oh no, he’s here.”

“Alright, alright,” his best friend whispers rapidly, removing his hands from the boy’s body as he moves to gather his things. “Got your phone, some money, your keys?”

“Check,” Zitao mutters as he checks his clutch to make sure he’s got everything. In it, he has his cell phone, some bills, his car keys, an extra tube of lipstick, a bottle of mace, and his house key. “Check, and check. I’ve got everything. Okay, I have to go.”

“Be safe!” Luhan tells him quickly, leaning in to give him an air-kiss on the cheek. “I don’t know if I’ll still be here by the time you get back, but if I’m not, I’ll see you tomorrow, alright? And I expect stories about how tonight went. Be safe, you two - no funny business.”

Patting him securely on the back, Zitao bids him adieu before turning on his heel and striding to his front door. Okay, okay, he can do this. Stabilizing himself, he takes a deep breath inward before he turns the handle on his door and pulls it open to step out onto the little space of his front porch. 

In order to walk smoothly without tripping on the dress, for Zitao does not know how much it must have cost, he has to hold the length of it in his free hand as he steps out onto his porch, smooth, freshly-shaven legs glowing as he steps out into the light of his porch lamp in the evening dim. In all of his handsome glory, the president is stood just outside the door on Zitao’s porch, his hands behind him as they rest on his lower back where he’d been waiting for him. As Zitao closes the door behind him, then, the president glances over at him, and Zitao feels like he can’t breathe. 

Not only is the man dressed more exquisitely than usual, wholly rivalling how great he had looked in Shanghai in his crisp white blouse and chic black suit with similar intricate golden detailing on the lapels, metallic and tapering and dusted with miniscule little diamonds, the buttons additionally golden and the gorges streaked in a deep, satiny red, as though having been made as part of a set from which Zitao’s dress had been produced. What takes him by surprise, however, is the purely ravenous look in the president’s eyes as he soaks up the sight, his eyes scanning him up and down as though never having seen him before, and Zitao begins to feel warm beneath the heat of that gaze. “I hope I’m not late,” is what he decides to say in order to slice through the impending awkwardness, and the man’s eyes suddenly rise to meet his as he speaks.

“No,” the president tells him sternly, his voice a little bit gruff, as though unused, and the boy can tell how haphazard his countenance has become as he forcibly composes himself, “you are not late. I was slightly early.”

Well, at least Zitao now knows to expect eyes on him the whole night.

Politely, the president begins to step down from the porch before extending a gentle hand for Zitao to take to help him down, and the boy’s cheeks flush as he accepts the gesture, slipping his fingers along the man’s warm, broad palm before a thumb clasps over his hand and guides him, patient and careful as Zitao maneuvers his way down the steps without walking on his dress. When Zitao makes it onto the pavement, then, the president’s hand leaves his and rather shifts to lay on his lower back as the man escorts him to his car, parked right out by the side of the road where the walkway ends. The gesture manages to lock impressional fingers around Zitao’s heart, and he begins to finds it more and more difficult to remind himself that this experience is strictly platonic and professional. 

When the car’s passenger door is opened for him by his boss, however, Zitao already feels like throwing in the towel and admitting to his arduous swaying, for he now somewhat understands why his co-workers enjoy engaging in intercrural relationships with their boss, for his well-mannered attitude and gentlemanliness proves to be tooth-achingly sweet and hopelessly addicting. 

Zitao is quiet as the man slides into the driver’s seat and fastens his seatbelt, and it’s only when the man starts his car via his touch-start controls that Zitao speaks up. “Does it look okay?” He asks quietly, and the president stills momentarily as his flat gaze slides over to him. Unsure if he had been clear enough, Zitao gestures to his attire with a manicured hand. “I wasn’t sure which jewelry and shoes to pair with this, or what makeup to do…” 

“It looks fine,” the man tells him, a casual hand wrapping around the top of his steering wheel as his throat works in a slow bob as his eyes rake down Zitao’s form once more. “Red looks quite nice on you.”

 _Red looks quite nice on you_. Zitao’s cheeks blush beneath the slight pigmentation of his cheek rouge, easily passing as makeup in the darkness of the man’s car when they pull away from the lot, and Zitao can only sincerely hope that the depth of his heartbeat isn’t audible in the comfortable silence that they lie in. 

As the man drives, Zitao begins to feel the awkwardness of the quiet’s weight upon him and feels the necessity to make some kind of conversation, but regarding which topic? The car remains in comfortable repose, the radio playing music at a low volume as the man keeps his eyes forward and on the road, and in the cloak of the darkness, Zitao takes the surreptitious initiative to watch him out of the corners of his eyes. 

As a man nearly ten years older than himself, Zitao would expect him to be much more clandestine in his reactions than someone of a younger age and a more unfledged mindstate, and in theory, would be harder to read than someone of a younger age. What surprises him despite knowing that is the way he continuously sees the man’s gaze flicker, as though his irises repetitively shift in their spots, and it’s only after several seconds of quiet watching that Zitao realizes he’s looking at him - at his body, moreover, and that he can’t seem to stop. 

He’s convinced, at first, that he’s merely seeing things, for it could have been a trick of the streetlights the way they naturally reflect off of the gloss of the man’s eyes. Zitao doesn’t exactly have the _best_ vision in the world, but can still very much see, for he is wearing contact lenses. Yet, he decides to test his skepticism and slides a hand behind his back as his spine arches just a bit, pretending to adjust the zipper trailing up his back, and his heartbeat skips when the president’s eyes follow the movement out of their shadowed corners. 

“What kind of car is this?” Zitao decides to ask in an attempt at small talk, up for just about anything to cut this silence. Against many common stereotypes, Zitao actually knows close to nothing about cars, for his current car was one which had been purchased by his father on Zitao’s sixteenth birthday and had been picked out without Zitao’s opinion. “It looks expensive,” he admits, curious eyes having found the touch-start controls and the very roomy interior, as well as the sleek black paint on the outside with attractive red trim. 

“It’s a Nissan GT-R,” the president says calmly, his left hand sliding down the length of the wheel as he tweaks his blinker. “The newest edition was about… one hundred and seventy-thousand, the bells and whistles not included.”

Zitao’s eyes widen, then, as his hand reaches out and slides delicately along the sleek interior, as though to soak up some of the wealth through the surface of his hand’s skin. “That’s a lot of money,” he responds in awe. His own car had only cost them about fifteen-thousand, give or take, and had been completely new rather than used by an uncommercial seller. “It’s a beautiful car.”

They roll to a slow stop at the forefront of a red light, and Zitao notices the man turn his face to look at him in the dim red glow. He wonders, quietly, why the man doesn’t respond to his compliment, yet he decides to let it go in favor that perhaps the president has something on his mind. Maybe he’s thinking about the banquet which starts soon, or maybe he’s thinking about something to do with work. Briefly, Zitao wonders if the man ever thinks about Mochou, and the thought kind of stings a little bit. Unsure of what else to say, Zitao remains quiet for the remainder of the ride.

When they arrive, Zitao practically presses his face right to the glass as he soaks up the sight of the venue, merely a one-story building that arches up sharply as though a cathedral, brightly-lit from the inside with tens of people stood outside on the vast walkway that leads to a foyer as they chat with each other in the mild glow of the outdoor lighting. In awe, he coos aloud to himself, a grin working its way across his lips as the president drives slowly into the lot to park, and Zitao wonders to himself if perhaps the man had slowed his speed just so Zitao could fawn over the scenery. 

“We’re here,” the man says beside him, and Zitao’s head jerks around to meet his gaze, having forgotten that he had somewhere important to be. 

As he registers his objective one more, his lips purse as he reaches down for his seatbelt lock to let himself out. As the president opens his door and waits patiently for him to step out of the car, well-mannered as usual, Zitao gathers his clutch bag as well as the extra fabric of his dress and carefully steps out onto the dry pavement, suddenly very glad that it had not rained, for he would not like to bear the knowledge that he had ruined such a beautiful gown with murky rainwater and soft, moistened dirt. Carefully, his fingers slip back into the man’s hand as he stands fully, letting the man close the door behind him and lock his car, before the warm palm beneath his slides away and he is then, instead, presented with an arm bent at the elbow. Confused, Zitao looks up at him for an explanation as the spicy scent of the man’s perfume softly washes over him. 

“Miss Huang,” the president mutters flatly, every bit as alluring as Zitao knows him to be when he gussies up. “You are to remain at my side the entirety of tonight unless I tell you otherwise - do you understand?”

Oh. Somewhat embarrassed for not having known what that gesture had meant, Zitao nods, switching the hand that he uses to hold the front of his dress as he slides his right arm into the president’s left elbow to link together elegantly. “Yes, Mr. Wu,” he says softly, and the man’s sharp eyes gaze down at him calmly before he nods, giving Zitao a moment to adjust himself. When the man deems him as ready, they begin to walk toward the doors of the reception hall. 

Still, being this close to the president the whole night is something Zitao doesn’t know if he is exactly ready for. Taking a deep breath as the president tells the host at the front doors his name, as well as the name of his plus-one, Zitao supposes he is going to have to suck it up, for he is here regardless of how he feels, and he is here to be a product of his boss’ augmentation. As the brilliant glow of the hundreds of internal lights greet them and eyes begin to wash over him - over them, rather - he forces a smile, fully intent on being as cordial and polished as the president would expect him to be.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

“Miss Huang,” the president says as their interlocking loosens and the man rather opts to slide a warm hand down to the small of the boy’s back, and Zitao jumps a little at the sudden contact, his hands holding his clutch protectively close to himself as his gown pools at his feet in graceful scarlet and gold waves. “This is Miss Lee Chaerin, one of the local designers with whom we had collaborated last winter. Chaerin, this is one of my highest-selling models, Miss Huang Yingtao.”

As he is extended a wrinkled, feminine hand, his eyes widen at the statement, suddenly too preoccupied with the man’s words to focus on anything else. Is he really one of the highest-selling? 

Slightly dazed, Zitao accepts the hand given to him as he grins softly at the woman, who admires him with icy blue eyes and grayed hair styled into antiquated swirls. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Huang. Mr. Wu is a _fabulous_ designer to have clothe you, and I can tell just by looking at the two of you that he is truly and so wonderfully talented! You are such a beautiful young lady - I still sometimes can’t believe that Mr. Wu has such a knack for finding such gorgeous women.”

Nervous, Zitao forces a pressed little smile and nods his head, the jewelry on his earlobes swaying. “Thank you, Miss Lee,” he tells her kindly. “Mr. Wu is an excellent designer to work for, as well. He’s very work-oriented and knows exactly what he wants.”

Charmed, the president’s lips raise in the shadow of a smirk, and Zitao’s heart beats in a sporadic turn. “Yes, well, I do have a reputation to uphold, Chaerin. Miss Huang is one of the hardest workers that I have yet to come across, for should I need her anywhere for anything at all, she is there to fulfill that request with no questions asked.”

“Ooh,” Chaerin coos, impressed, her nails sliding suggestively against her lip as her inky black eyes slit. “You sound like quite the corporeal catch, Miss Huang. How long have you worked for him, if I may ask?”

“About five months,” Zitao nods, and the woman’s eyes widen again as her eyebrows twitch in a raise, clearly swindled by the boy’s prowess. “I was on a lighter workload for a period of about six weeks because I had fractured my ankle, so Mr. Wu helped me reach a compromise to do my assignments despite being injured.”

“She continued to work equally as conscientiously as she always has,” the president tells the woman, and Zitao’s cheeks flush as the man glances over at him briefly, his eyes sharp yet soft, simply aloof as per usual with his business facade. “Akin to before, Chaerin - she is one of the hardest workers I myself have ever met, and may continue to ever meet so long as I live.”

From the flattery, Zitao’s face has become awfully warm, and he is not sure how well he will be able to handle an entire _night_ of this kind of sweet treatment. How will his heart be able to take being complimented by such an attractive, suave gentleman? 

“Please excuse me for just a moment,” the president says, then, and Zitao’s conscious jerks back to the present. “I shall go fetch us some drinks, yes?”

“Ooh, make mine on the rocks!” Chaerin calls out, and Zitao sees that she already has a martini glass in her hand as she smirks at them, her attitude flippant and mature in the way that she carries herself, full-bosomed and well-endowed. 

As he acknowledges her request, the president gives a short, curt nod, and Zitao feels eyes on him once more. “Miss Huang,” the president mutters beside him in a flat tone, and Zitao’s glossy, shimmering eyes look up by his side, a shy hand resting on the arm of the president’s suit where they’re linked. “Please come with me.”

Formally, the president escorts him to the far left side of the massive hall, an extensive dining table sat over near the right side of the room where a roped-off platformed area sits in the front, somewhere Zitao would imagine an entertainer standing, as the platform is merely only several inches tall, and he watches as the president brings him to a wide, self-serve alcoholic bar. “I have some rules to discuss with you, Miss Huang,” the president says, then, and Zitao’s eyes widen a little bit as the long arm around his leaves him as the president steps away, forward, designating several chute glasses off to the side for personal consumption. “This being a formal event that you are a guest at, you are not permitted to drink hard liquors here. I am going to safely assume that you may have never been to a formal banquet, but simple etiquette that you should know involves not becoming drunk when at formal events, like this one. Do you understand?”

Oh. Zitao can understand how that’s a rule, for it is an event that requires communication and hyperactivity, and being intoxicated would only lessen both sides of the given sociality. Besides, Zitao is not _always_ a hard drinker - frankly, the only times he enjoys ingesting hard liquors are if he does not have to be up early the next morning and is with friends. Unlike perhaps some, Zitao likes to think that he can hold his own pretty well and has well-formed self-restraint when it comes to his alcohol intake and tolerance. “I understand, sir,” he says, and the president’s eyes leave his as he reaches for the ice scoop to pour some crystallized beads of ice into a clean martini glass - likely Chaerin’s. 

“Which liquors do you normally drink?” The president asks him with a keen eye, and Zitao realizes that he doesn’t very much know. He doesn’t normally drink liquors _plural._

“I only really ever drink vodka,” he says softly, “so, um… I don’t really know much about liquors. Wine sometimes, too, I guess?”

Taking the information into account, the president nods, and Zitao watches as he turns away from him and scans his eyes over the rows of liquor bottles lined up on the extent of the bar table. “If you are a fan of wine,” the president tells him over his shoulder, “then you might like this one.”

Zitao watches, silent as his fingers flex over the hold of his clutch bag, as the president reaches for a stout black bottle, large with frosty baby-pink lacework wrapping around its body where the front label sits. He watches as the president uncorks the bottle swiftly and practically effortlessly, and he really shouldn’t find it so attractive that a man of his broad, tall stature could so easily uncork a bottle as though it took very little strength to do so, and Zitao can’t help but wonder how much power lies in those muscles and therefore, those hands. When the president sets the bottle back down and hands him a chute glass, Zitao sees that it has been filled with a transparent, summery pink liquid that fizzes along the smooth walls of the glass. When he takes it, bowing his head in thanks, the aroma of sweet, tart strawberries meets his nose, and he finds himself asking, “What is this?”

Pouring himself a glass of something else from a dark, black bottle that translates as nearly silver in the glass, the president says, “Piper-Heidsieck rosé,” and Zitao decides to take a curious sip now that he knows what it is. It’s quite a dark taste, smoky and fruity all at once, and he supposes it’s not all that bad. “Expensive, but very exquisite.”

“It’s good,” he tells his boss, a soft little smile on his face. In this light, the shadows of the man’s eye makeup outline his eyes prettily and make his expression appear darker and more intimidating, rather sexy, in Zitao’s opinion, and the deep shades in his hair resonate with warm brown tones in this bright of exposure. “Is this wine?”

“It is champagne,” he is told, as the president stands from the bar and turns around with two drinks, one in each hand and each one in a different-shaped glass. “Champagne is quite a common staple drink at professional events - that is, because it tends to be more difficult to become intoxicated off of it. Drink it sparingly.”

Taking another sip, Zitao lowers the glass from his lips. Is the president truly concerned for him, thinking that Zitao may have a low liquor tolerance? He wonders if it is common for women to have low tolerances as compared to men, for he doesn’t himself know. 

“Dinner will be served soon,” the president states. “Until then, you are required to stay by my side at all times, but you do not have to hold onto me anymore unless we are to be photographed together. Do you understand?”

He nods, lips pressed together in determination. “I understand, sir.”

 

 

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

  
  
Dutifully, Zitao follows the president around nearly everywhere that he goes, sipping on his champagne each time he is not spoken to in order to alleviate his social anxiety. Although a guest product on display for the president’s handiwork, Zitao is not used to having to interact with so many strangers of such high social stature, and it proves to be somewhat intimidating as Zitao does his best to smile through it and greet each of them with respect as they shake his hand. 

As the president chats with some other designers, Zitao is approached by a rogue photographer and is asked for a photograph, and he feels a sense of pride flood his chest as he accepts the gesture, handing his belongings delicately to his boss as he takes hold of his gown to pose prettily for the camera. When the photographer is done, he thanks him greatly, and asks for a shot of him as well as the president, and Zitao once again links arms with the taller man who straightens his spine on quiet command and permeates Zitao’s senses with the scent of his spicy musk. 

When Zitao is handed his clutch and his drink once more, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and notices two men approaching them, and the only thing that signifies that thought as being approaching them specifically, is that when Zitao glances over, he makes direct eye contact with the handsome one in front who approaches them with a content little grin and a glass of dark wine in his hand. 

“Good evening,” the man in front says, presenting them with a handsome grin that resonates approachability and kindness. “Is this one of your employees, Kris?”

Blinking, Zitao’s eyebrows furrow slightly. _Kris._ He had forgotten since nobody at work is allowed to call him by anything other than his professional titles, that the man did have a first business name. 

Beside him, the president’s shoes click softly as he turns in his posture, facing the two gentlemen directly. “Yes, this is one of my models, Miss Huang Yingtao. Miss Huang, these are some of my close companions; this is Kevin, and this is Kyungsoo. Kevin is a photographer beneath Chaerin’s brand, and Kyungsoo is an exchange-seamster from South Korea.”

Zitao is greeted by two hands to shake, one from the shorter man in the back who is dressed in a pinstriped blouse with chic black slacks, and the second from the taller man in the front whom had approached them, a homely grin practically glued to his lips as though it naturally belongs there, and Zitao safely assumes, by which directions the president uses to introduce both men to him, that the taller friend is Kevin, and that the shorter friend is, therefore, Kyungsoo. “It’s nice to meet you,” Zitao grins as Kevin releases his hand. 

“Wow, you’re even prettier in person,” Kyungsoo comments wholesomely, and Zitao’s lips etch itchingly into a smile. “I’ve seen some prints, but shots are usually retouched and airbrushed, you know?”

“Oh,” he blushes, suddenly shy in his form-fitting scarlet gown. “Thank you very much.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Kevin grins, and Zitao’s eyes widen at the thought of the president talking about him extraneously. “Kris always talks about his highest-selling models and sometimes talks about events that happen down at the firm. We heard about you fracturing your ankle - are you alright, now?”

Stunned, Zitao nods on autopilot. “Yes, my - my ankle is much better now, thank you.”

“Miss Huang,” the president interjects beside him as he noisily clears his throat, and Zitao wonders if the man may not be a fan of having his friends expose too much information about him. “Could you possibly return to the bar and retrieve me another martini? Five parts gin, two parts vermouth, and one part lemon, if you could.” 

“Oh,” he comments softly, taking the president’s used glass from him and giving them a polite nod. “Of course. I shall go get that for you - could you hold my clutch for me while I’m gone?”

Nodding, the man takes the boy’s bag as he bids them adieu and returns to the bar table, a devout mission in mind with a handful of scarlet brushed-satin and a determined gait in those steps.

As his model is gone, then, the man turns back to his friends to greet them even further - when his brows furrow, gaze sharpening, when he realizes that his old schoolmate has his eyes on his model’s body as she walks away, hungrily trained on the shape of her rear in the fitted gown. “Kevin,” he scolds flatly, clearing his throat, and his friend jumps a little bit as he snaps out of his gaze, as though it were difficult. “What are you looking at?”

Scandalously, his best friend cocks his head and jerks his chin in the general direction of where the model had walked off, a snide little glint in his eye. “The girl’s got a really nice ass,” he comments, and the president’s gaze narrows as his friend smirks, “I’m not gonna lie. Surely you’re not blind, Kris - surely you’ve noticed that yourself.”

“Of course I have, for her body is my commercial property,” the man states sternly, “which means keep your eyes to yourself. She is my plus-one for this evening - she is not eye candy for the viewing pleasure of everyone here.”

As though to laugh it off, his friend’s lips quirk and his shoulders bounce, as Kyungsoo sips his drink bawdily behind him. “I was just joking, Kris,” Kevin tells him. “Relax. You don’t need to get so protective.”

Inhaling briskly, the president’s chest broadens. “I am responsible for her this evening, and therefore, I am responsible for her actions and the actions of those around her that directly involve her. Keep the commentary and the staring professional, yes?”

“Yifan, just relax,” Kyungsoo comments calmingly. “We’re not going to do anything - Kevin’s just a big airhead, and you know that. He just wants to have a little bit of fun.”

Still grumpy, the president scowls, unhappy with the objectifying gazes being sent to his model as she simply follows orders, and he somewhat regrets his decision of having chosen that scarlet and gold gown for her to wear, for despite him having appreciation for it, he had forgotten to take into account others around him. As his aforementioned model turns on her heel from where she stands at the bar and begins to stride over to them, postured awkwardly with a glass in one hand and the front of her gown in the other, he begins to feel the need to break up this festering of testosterone around far too innocent of a lady. 

“They’re setting the table,” he comments dryly, and his friends glance over their shoulders to the banquet table which is beginning to be set to immaculate condition with silver-topped platters and crystal-clear drinking glasses. “Be seated, the two of you. I will go retrieve Miss Huang for supper.”

“Fine,” Kevin scoffs. “You buzzkill.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao has not been able to eat marbled steak since being put on his diet - which, as the president sets a plate of sliced mignon and herb-seasoned vegetables in front of him with a following glance of permission, makes today all that more special. Hungrily, he finds himself digging in with pristine precision, taking small bites so as to not accidentally spill anything on his gown, and the president pours him a glass of the same pink-tinged champagne that he drank earlier with a graceful, masculine elegance. Thankful, Zitao sends him a grin as he sits down beside him.

The president eats quietly as he chatters away with several other professionals littered around the table, and Zitao remains silent as he takes minimal bites of his filet, wanting to savor the meal in fear that he may not have another. 

What he finds to be the factor that does him in is the gentility that he receives as he finishes his filet and begins to pick at his vegetables, when the president verbally excuses himself, stands from his seat, and asks Zitao if he would like seconds. Nodding out of habit, for whatever garlic-butter had been smothered on the filet sure is delicious, and he finds his heartbeat thundering, smitten, as the president serves him several more slices before sitting back down beside him and saying nothing as Zitao resumes eating.

The absolute finishing touch, however, proves to be the gentle hand that is laid surreptitiously on his clothed knee, the warmth of the man’s skin bleeding into his from over top the cloth, and it’s a wonder that he has not yet merely fainted into the man’s arms like a distressed, lovesick damsel.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
  


  
To relieve him of the strangeness of having to linger by him like a shadow, the president had given him permission to mingle as he pleased and to enjoy the festivity of the live performer, a balladeer with dark, pretty hair and glittered eyelids that compliment her silvery gown. 

So, as a consolation, Zitao rewards himself with another glass of rosé which, at this point, makes it his third, and Zitao has begun to feel a little bit floaty. Not quite tipsy, but not quite sober, either, Zitao simply feels relaxed, his social anxiety and his self-consciousness dissipating as he sways to the tune of the singer’s folk track. It’s a slightly upbeat little thing that Zitao finds himself liking, the lyrics of which he doesn’t exactly understand, being in a language other than his own, but it remains pretty, nonetheless. 

Quietly, Zitao watches as the president chats with several people over by the entryway, his friends lingering about around the shadows of his steps in a popularized cluster, the majority of the event’s attendees loitering near the bar as well as the entryway, a handful of which have begun to leave early, and Zitao wonders if perhaps they are of older age or have other festivities to attend elsewhere. 

Still, being by himself isn’t all that bad. He makes simple conversation with a lady by the name of Alice, apparently a plus-one under another designer here that she refers to as _Mr. Kang_ , someone who Zitao is not familiar with. She is a nice young woman, around Zitao’s own age and of a bodily stature far lighter than his own, her limbs lithe and her hair long and wavy as it curtains over her bosom in her little cocktail dress. Zitao respects someone who can look so pretty in such a glittery dress, for he is not one of those people. 

As the evening ticks on, however, with four and a half glasses of rosé down the hatch and a permanent pink tone on his already-rouged cheeks, Zitao finds that more and more of the partygoers are beginning to pair off, and therefore, the president’s immediate entourage by the front entrance has begun to dwindle down to a lone few. 

Then, the tempo of the songs that the balladeer has been performing [changes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqlnZuXQpy8), dropping down into something instrument-centric and slow, and Zitao realizes what’s actually happening. The attendees around him are beginning to dance together, slow and languid as they sway with the music, and Zitao’s cheeks flush. No, it can’t be.

He had signed up for a banquet with the president - meaning a professional, formal dinner, as well as free alcohol, with the president. If there’s one thing he had not signed up for, and would likely not have attended would he have known it would have occurred, it would without a doubt be slow dancing. 

Nervous for what he knows is inevitable, Zitao tries to linger among the walls in an attempt to masquerade as one of the shadows, figuring that if the man does not see him, he will not ask him to dance. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Yet, as quite possibly one of the only women in a blood-red gown with noticeable golden detailing, Zitao is very easy to spot, and it’s simply a matter of moments before he notices the president beginning to glance over to him, and Zitao’s heartbeat skips. Slowly, the man says something to the friends he stands with, before Zitao has to avert his eyes as the man begins to approach him from afar, long, casual strides that make Zitao more nervous with each step, and he cannot find it in himself to fight the desire to sink his teeth into his bottom lip and knit his fingers together behind his back when he sets his drink down. 

As expected, the president approaches him with a tensed expression and a softness on his tongue as he croons out a warm, “Yingtao,” and if that hadn’t been enough to melt Zitao into a puddle where he stands, he’s not sure he would last much longer in a wholly-solid state. “I need you to accompany me in a dance. There are far too many eyes on me already for not being out there on the floor.”

No, he couldn’t. He _can’t_. That would be crossing the line, stepping too far away from the safety of professionalism and officially diving into the threshold of intimacy, and Zitao isn’t sure he’s ready. He can’t get into a relationship with someone while lying to them about who he is, that’s wrong. Wouldn’t they expect wholesome honesty from him in order to build trust? What happens if he breaks that trust? Rather than thinking of his economic situation, he thinks about how it would affect the president as a person. As someone who had already had a loved one taken from him unfairly, how would he react to Zitao betraying him and lying to him all along about who he is? Zitao can’t do that to him.

Despite that, Zitao finds that he doesn’t have the strength to say no as he nods his head yes and slides a manicured hand into the president’s palm, coaxing him away from the truss of the wall as, hand in hand, he is brought out onto the open floor that extends in front of the balladeer. “We only have to do this until the floor begins to clear,” the president mumbles to him as warm fingertips trail along the inside of his delicate palm. Zitao nods, for the only thing he can do at this point is trust him, and as the man’s eyes lock onto his for permission as his free hand rests gently on Zitao’s lower back, the song changes, and the president’s thumb brushes tenderly over his fingers as they begin to sway.

The music is delicate and slow, pretty and instrumental in a way that pulls at Zitao’s heart, and red flags wave in the back of his mind as the president’s arm around him tugs gently and brings them closer together, chest to chest with their faces merely centimeters in distance, and Zitao’s cheeks rosy even further as he notices the man looking down at him, his eyes soft and dark and compassionate, and no, he isn’t strong enough to resist something like this. Not when the president carefully releases his fingers and settles on laying both hands on Zitao’s lower back, and definitely not when he is left with absolutely no choice but to wrap his hands around the man’s neck. His poor little heart isn’t strong enough for this. 

He can’t help but worry that the pound of his heartbeat surely must be noticeable against the man’s chest, and he wonders if the president would have anything to say about it if he knew. Being this close, the spicy scent of the man’s perfume wafting around them and Zitao’s palms lingering shakily on his nape, he finds that he almost can’t breathe as his anxiety peaks and every masculine feature about himself could be on display this close-up. 

Shy and far too afraid, Zitao sucks it up and pulls his hands back to wrap around the man’s own waist as he gently lays his head on his shoulder, his palms curtaining his upper back. 

Having the man so close to him, breathing right under him with skin warm like the day and a heartbeat as real and as fluid as his own, proves to be cathartic at best, and Zitao finds himself helplessly lovelorn as he indulges when he shouldn’t and allows the man to gently guide their steps. 

When the song around them reaches its graceful, leisurely bridge, Zitao feels the soft brush of fingertips along the side of his face and down the chords of his throat, and he instinctively opens his eyes and lifts his head from the man’s shoulder to see just what he’s doing. This proves to be a bad move, for the man’s eyes are glassy, sentimental, and acquiescing, dimmed around the edges and possibly the most human Zitao has ever seen them seem, and his insides melt as he gets lost in the warm tones of his irises. 

Then, before he knows it, the man’s thumb is lingering on Zitao’s cheek and his eyelashes flutter as he looks downward, and Zitao’s insides clench as he realizes what’s happening. He wants a kiss.

No, Zitao can’t do that - but his lips are so close, so rosy and so pretty along the line of his simper. It would be so easy to lean in and give the man exactly what he wants, to give him exactly what would make him happy, but no - Zitao can’t lie to him this way.

Panicking, he pulls out of the tender hold and backs away, his hands trembling as his cheeks burn and the president’s gaze follows him in dejection, as though he were just rejected, and that look truly breaks Zitao’s heart. He can tell very clearly that the man doesn’t understand, but Zitao doesn’t either, and he has no idea how to explain why he doesn’t understand or what he feels may be right or wrong. 

“What is the matter?” The president mumbles between them, his voice soft and low and lilting at the edges as though tainted with upset, and Zitao cannot do much other than bring his jittery fingers up to his mouth and try to sort out the jumbled mess that has become of his insides.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in apology and turns on his heel as he strides away and toward the restrooms. He tries his best not to think about the embarrassment be probably caused his boss by walking away from him like that as he pushes past the women’s room doors and places warm palms on the cool countertop, simply needing the peace and quiet to sort his thoughts. 

He’s meddling far too deeply into dangerous territory, for this kind of road would only go downhill and would only result in hurting the both of them, both Zitao for risking his mother’s life upon the threat of losing his job, and additionally the president upon the threat of losing another romantic interest. Knowing just how much the man has gone through with his love life, Zitao cannot string him along like this. 

This is far too unfair, and Zitao doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
  


When he finds that he has calmed down some, he exits the bathroom with a calming breath and decides that he needs to apologize. Panicking was one thing but walking out on the president like that and leaving him likely embarrassed in front of over a hundred people of equal if not higher commercial stature was another, and Zitao feels very irresponsible and unprofessional. 

As he shyly turns the corner out of the bathroom hall, he’s a little bit surprised to find that the president had been waiting for him, perched against the wall with a straightened spine and crossed arms, and Zitao bites down on his lip as the president’s eyes slide over to him, sharp and annoyed. 

“You should not have done that,” the president scolds him in a low tone, and Zitao averts his eyes, for he knows just how immature he had been. “That was very unprofessional for you to walk away from me like that, especially considering that I had not given you permission to do so.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out an apology, feeling gross for having fled like that.

Then, with resolve, the president sighs, uncharacteristically soft as his voice drops before he says, “No, I am the one who is sorry. We should not have done that.”

Surprised, Zitao’s eyes widen as his hands stutter at his front, his fingers knitting together nervously. He had expected a hard scolding, perhaps even a demotion or a write-up for his behavior - but an apology? Zitao can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Oh,” he mutters quietly, not entirely sure who it is that should be taking the blame. 

After only a few moments, the man stands up fully, his countenance annoyed and irritable - rightfully so, Zitao might add, since the object of his current romantic interest walked out on their first kiss - and looks at him with dull, almost-tired eyes. “I have to finish up some things here,” is what he tells Zitao, just as tall and intimidating as always as he stands mere inches away from him. “I was approached about a few collaboration offers that I have to finalize with their respective companies, and after that, we can get ready and leave. Would that be alright with you, Miss Huang?”

He nods, his lip nestled between his teeth in his nervousness, for it does sting a little bit to no longer have the privilege of being referred to as Yingtao. No longer affectionate, the president gives him a curt nod before he simply walks off, leaving Zitao by the bathrooms with sadness in his eyes and regret in his heart. 

He deserves it, he supposes, for it was very rude for him to just abandon his host that way. So, in a cloud of his own sorrow and self-hatred, Zitao slumps against the wall with his clutch in-hand and pouts as the feeling of having ruined this entire night begins to stick to his skin. Leave it to him to just fuck everything up all the time, no matter what the occasion. 

Lonely and disheartened, Zitao decides to head to the bar for one last drink. Maybe those four glasses of champagne hadn’t been enough, and Zitao feels the need for something slightly stronger to help him forget the embarrassment of this night. 

When he gets there, his fingers linger on a clean, empty glass as he stares at the rows of bottles, unsure of what most of them are, for he is not naturally a heavy drinker. He supposes that rather than play a guessing game and find something that he doesn’t like, that maybe five glasses of champagne is what it will take to make his buzz kick in, so he reaches out and takes the frosted-pink bottle and pours himself a fifth glass. Of course, the president did tell him to make sure that he didn’t fall too inebriated while at a formal event such as this, but Zitao knows his limits - the only time he had ever gone from sober as a pigeon to stumbling over his steps all of a sudden was that one time he had tried whiskey. 

As he brings the glass to his lips and takes a sizable sip, he sighs, for the only thing that never seems to let him down is a nice glass of liquor. As he drinks by himself by the table, he feels a gentle tapping on his shoulder and glances over among the expectant haze to see who is touching him. 

“Yingtao, right?” The man says with a slight, lopsided grin on his face, and Zitao recognizes him as that guy from earlier - that Kevin guy. “You probably forgot me already. I’m Kevin - we met earlier.”

Realization dawning on him, he nods and takes the hand extended to him to shake. “Yes, I remember you,” he presses his lips together and nods, attempting to feign a smile even though, right now, it hurts. 

“Listen,” Kevin says gently, his dark hair combed back as his face tilts slightly toward the ceiling lights and his hands worm their way into his trouser pockets, long and lanky in a way that his boss is not, for his boss is broad and structured. “I really wasn’t planning on saying anything, but after seeing you two on the dance floor like that, I feel like I have to say this - truthfully, I don’t think I’ve seen my best friend look at anybody in ten years the way he looks at you. I know, it’s kinda weird to think about - he’s your boss, and all, but I know him better than most.”

Then, he sighs and sets his drink down on the table. “Everyone says that,” he says softly, “and I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Kevin laughs a little, shaking his head as though in slight disbelief. “Well, it’s not shocking that many seem to have realized because it’s the honest truth. I don’t know exactly how Yifan feels about you, but I know that it’s more than platonic, Yingtao. Look, I’m not trying to tell you to go sweep him off of his feet and give him what he wants, but he doesn’t take to people very easily, and I haven’t seen him hold so much interest in someone in a very long time. You know about his wife, don’t you?”

A little bit sullen, as though unsure if he should say too much, Zitao nods. “The girls at work told me,” he tells him. “I… I saw a picture of his wife one time, on his desk. At the time, I didn’t know who it was - I just thought it was another model that I hadn’t met because I had only worked maybe a week total at that point. When he saw that I had spotted the picture, though, he got really hostile and growled at me to get out of his office. I haven’t seen him act quite that brusquely since.”

Mulling it over briefly, the man nods. “He doesn’t like to talk about it,” he tells Zitao. “It’s an extremely sensitive topic for him, and he has a really hard time getting over it. I’ve tried telling him that he should throw her pictures away, but he says he’s afraid of forgetting her and what he’s done. Listen, Yingtao - I know this is probably a really sticky situation for you to be in, and obviously, nobody can force you to return Yifan’s feelings or even go out with him, but just know that he does like you, no matter what he tells you. I can see it in his eyes, and I was here when he was engaged to Mochou. I know how he looks at the people he loves.”

At the mention of the word _love_ , Zitao’s heart thumps against his ribs. “I don’t know what I want to do,” he mumbles softly, yet Kevin is still able to catch it despite the drop in volume. “I just… there are things I can’t tell him right now, and I don’t want to get involved with him like that until I’m comfortable enough to tell him. It would be too wrong to lie to him.”

“Of course,” Kevin nods, grinning slightly as though in contentful hope. “Don’t feel rushed, Yingtao - even Yifan doesn’t like to rush into things like this, believe me. Just, keep it in the back of your mind, okay? And if he does anything to hurt you or says anything that hurts you, come tell me and I’ll kick his ass for it - alright?”

As though having made a new confidant, Zitao feels slightly warm inside - though, that could also very well be due to the champagne. “Okay,” he grins, feeling a little better than before. “Thank you,” he coos sweetly, and Kevin gives him a polite nod as he returns to his group’s company. 

When he glances over, however, the president is looking straight at him from afar and Zitao can see the unhappiness in his expression even from a distance, and it makes the warmth within him dissipate. Then, the president begins to stride over, and Zitao has to begin writing his will in the crevices of his subconscious mind, organizing the fact that his bank account will be handed over to Luhan to do with what he must in order to support his mother’s chemotherapy treatments, and his apartment will be leased to Luhan to either sell or keep, and all of the clothes will be donated to charity - 

“What were you and Kevin talking about?” The president asks him gruffly as he approaches, and Zitao jerks out of his thoughts and nearly knocks his drink over where it’s sat beside his hip.

“Work,” is what he says, picking his drink back up to take a long sip. “Why?”

As though annoyed, the president’s eyebrows draw downward as his gaze narrows, and Zitao watches as his irises lock onto the movement of the glass being drawn to Zitao’s lips. “How many of those have you had?” He asks, and his tone is much more abrupt and saturated than before, clearly unhappy.

Blinking, Zitao lowers the nearly-empty glass. “Five,” he says gently, for it is the mere truth. Then, as though angry, the president reaches out to take the glass from him before he places it back onto the bar table and grabs Zitao’s hand where it rests at his side and begins to pull him away from the table. Unused to the change in movement, Zitao scrambles for his clutch bag as the bar table drifts further and further away from view. “Hey!” He complains in a small tone. “What gives?”

Without turning back around, the president’s hand around his wrist tightens as he says, “I specifically told you not to drink too much at an event such as this. Now, because you cannot listen to me, we are going home.”

Zitao sure does wish his heartbeat didn’t skip at the thought of going home with the president, or in simpler homes, going to the man’s house likely for another drink and an exciting night - but, no. He has to keep this strictly professional until he can tell him the truth.

Unfortunately for him, the president does not slow down as they stride out of the foyer and into the parking lot, which means that Zitao has an awful time trying his best not to step on his gown, for one of his hands has his bag in it, and the other is wrenched in the man’s grip and unable to gather the front of his dress as he walks. If there are tears in it or frayed threads, then Zitao is not going to let the president blame it on him tomorrow. 

When they get to his car, Zitao is silent as his hand is given back to him and he uses it to ruche up the front of his dress as he slides into the passenger seat. As the president joins him in the car and remains quiet as the car is started and is then pulled out of the parking lot, Zitao remains wordless, as well, afraid that anything he says could set the man off his hinges and that, out of everything that has occurred tonight, would cause the biggest mess that Zitao isn’t sure he will be able to clean up. 

Sighing as his presence is continually ignored, Zitao leans his head on the cool glass of the window and closes his eyes, the lull of the moving car and the buzz from the fifth glass of champagne serving helpful to coax him into a gentle sleep.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
  


 

  
When the car rolls to a lulling stop, his hands shift from the wheel to the stick shift to place it in park as the methodical buzz of the car’s engine dulls. “We are here,” he says gruffly, keeping his eyes trained forward as the silence begins to stretch on in his reverie, and he settles back into his seat with a hand cradling his temple where his arm rests against the base of the window. 

The girl’s apartment is just up the lawn from where he’s parked, dimly lit from the inside with a warm, bright lamp bolted beside the door toward the awning glowy and welcoming, and the girl should be rousing among rustles of fabric and the double-click of her seatbelt lock - yet there is only silence, and his brow tenses as he registers the lack of movement beside him. 

When he glances over then, his lips part with a soft sound as he realizes that the girl has fallen asleep, her head lolled against the window and her eyes shut as she snores softly through parted lips, the peachy tones of her alcoholic flush having spread over her nose. Sighing softly, he swears under his breath as he realizes that he’s going to have to wake her up in order to get her out of the car, and he can only hope that she is a light sleeper and that she does respond to being nudged awake. 

With a trepid hand, he reaches out and clasps her frail shoulder with long fingers and gently shakes it, hoping to stir her among her intoxicated fog. He realizes too late that he should have realized that she would not have even so much as flinched when this drunk, for even when he shakes her a little bit harder, she does not even attempt to rouse. He would have panicked, perhaps, if the rhythmic rise and fall of her bosom weren’t evident, but now he has a predicament at hand, for he cannot seem to wake her up and he still needs to, somehow, deliver her to her own apartment in one whole piece. 

Seeing no other means of action to take, he shuts off his car with a twist of his keys before unbuckling his own seatbelt to then let himself out, closing the driver-side door behind him. He can’t believe that he really has to carry an intoxicated model out of his car as though she were a young child - hadn’t he strictly told her to take it easy so something like this would not have happened? Still, she had remained very well-behaved and hadn’t treated the function like she were at a nightclub. He’d had a bad experience several years ago like that with Sowon, wherein he had to refrain from screaming at her as she spilled her glass of Château Lafite all over a hand-tailored brushed-silk gown in rose-gilded champagne gold, an ugly, dark red blotch on the stomach of elegantly-embroidered rose gold. He had never been able to get the stain out and had to discard of the dress which had cost his company, as well as Sowon, tens of _thousands_ of dollars to replace. Since then, he had ever made it a rule to serve only light liquors at functions which he attends with plus-ones and for his plus-ones to be on their best, as well as their cleanest, behavior. 

When he gets to the girl’s side of the car, he immediately has to lurch forward to catch her as her body begins to fall as the structure of the door is pulled away, and he curses under his breath once more as he leans over to unlock her seatbelt for her in order to help her unconscious body out of the car. She’s quite heavy - which he supposes he should have expected from someone who is _just_ his height when in heels - and her soft breath along his cheek as he hoists her against his shoulder reeks of fermented liquor, which causes him to wince as he reaches down for her clutch purse. The soles of his polished shoes scratch loudly against the pavement as he struggles to maneuver her, yet he successfully manages to lift her in dual arms as though she were injured, and the pool of the end of her gown dangles elegantly over heeled shoes as he winds an arm up under her knees and grunts with the effort it takes to carry her as well as shut the car door with an insistent knee. 

From thereon, it’s intricate guesswork to unclasp her clutch while holding her with both hands in order to find her house keys. He can’t believe he’s _still_ having to do this with his models years later, for he would have thought that they would have listened to him when having been intimidated by him. Perhaps he needs to learn to be stricter and more persistent with his rules. 

When he manages to unlock her front door, a sigh rolls through him at the relief of the action. Impatiently, he nudges open the door with his knee and manages to turn on her living room light switch with his elbow, and prides himself on being able to do so so nimbly. Finally having crossed the worst part of the obstacle course, he strides over to her living room sofa and - after a moment of debating simply dumping her onto it and leaving - settles her onto it in a lying position on her side, her head propped up by one of the accent pillows as she mumbles softly under her breath, wordless and merely a combination of small sounds. After a few moments, she stills and begins to sleep once more, and he lets out a slow breath beside her as he kneels down quietly. 

Despite being a pain in the ass and drinking more than she had been told, she really is pretty. He knows he cannot deny that for simply being around her makes his heartbeat quicken. What is it about her, he wonders, that feels so different from everybody else? What is it about her that is so unique and is so contrastive from all of the other thousands of women that he’s crossed paths with before?

It’s not like him to be this smitten, and the thought that he’s let himself get this out of hand honestly scares him, for he is not ready to entirely forget about Mochou and the memories of her which linger around his own home, including the embossed ring which lingers on his finger at all times. 

Nervously, he glances down and begins to fiddle with it, turning it around the digit as he repents quietly to himself. “What am I doing?” He mumbles softly, voice just above a whisper as his expression twists in agonized regret, for what _is_ he doing? What is he doing here, in a girl’s apartment living room, with his feelings in a tangled knot? He had promised himself years ago that he would never do to another woman what he had let happen to Mochou, for it had been all his fault for allowing her to leave the company and move back home. If he hadn’t done that… 

Throat working, he abruptly stands up and turns away as his eyes begin to feel hot, and it becomes all too clear for his own sanity that it is not wise to remain in this girl’s apartment with his heart on his sleeve like this. For his own safety, and for hers, as well, he strides out of her apartment and locks it behind himself, and returns to his car. He shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
  


 

  
At the hospital that weekend, Doctor Kim approaches him with tension in his smile, and Zitao’s gut instinctively sinks as he prepares himself for the worst. Thankfully, however, what he has to say is not in regards to his mother’s deterioration, but rather, “Your mother and I have been discussing something when she is in the activity den every week,” and when Zitao’s head cocks to the side, the doctor explains by continuing with, “Perhaps you know her companion Wu Lanfen in room one thirty-eight on the first floor - originally, this would not have been brought to your attention, but your mother and I have both spoken about the possibility for her to undergo surgery to donate a kidney to Ms. Wu, as she is approaching the third stage of kidney failure.”

The first reaction - Zitao’s mind goes static, unable to comfortably combine the words _your mother_ and _undergo surgery_ , as Zitao is very much aware of the possibility that the stress brought on by physical surgery could very well prove to be too strenuous on her exhausted body and could very well mean the end of her, but Zitao also knows how devoted she is to her friendship with Lanfen. Additionally, he remembers his mother saying something about Lanfen’s kidneys - what had it been, exactly? Hadn’t she said something like, she overheard a nurse mentioning the woman’s enzyme levels being off? 

The second reaction - his eyes go slightly wide as the pieces of his mental puzzle begin to patch together, as it sinks in that Lanfen - his mother’s lifelong good friend and Zitao’s past babysitter - is the president’s mother. His heartbeat quickens at the realization, and the thought that he and the president could have very easily crossed paths as children makes his cheeks flush in warmth.

“So,” Zitao starts to say, his voice small, “does that mean my mother will be scheduled for surgery?”

“If you approve of this notion,” Doctor Kim tells him, “then yes, your mother will be scheduled for surgery. We, of course, needed to tell you in order for you to prepare for this. I must tell you, Zitao, that her current prognosis does look bright for her survival rate of this surgery, but we needed to inform you of this regardless.”

Zitao nods, appreciative yet apprehensive, for that always means that there is a small chance that his mother won’t make it. Everything inside of him wants to selfishly reject the surgery in order to keep his mother all to himself, but he knows that that would not make her happy. He knows that donating her kidney to Lanfen would make her happy, and Zitao always wants to do what makes her happy. 

Sighing, he weighs his very limited options, and cold blooms in the pit of his stomach as he realizes which option is morally right and which one is not.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao finds out via the electronic bulletin board as well as Qian’s word as he returns from lunch that he has a shoot scheduled outside under the president’s personal guise, and everything in his body locks up as she informs him of the assignment, for he instinctively wants to run and hide in a closet somewhere and play the role of absence after the embarrassment of turning down the president’s kiss Friday night. He hadn’t been able to get it off of his mind all weekend enough to have given him trouble last night sleeping thoroughly and unproblematically. As he had hidden away in the studio that morning so as to not have to awkwardly bump into the president with close to nothing to say for his actions at the banquet, the only thing that had remained on Zitao’s mind was simply why had he pulled away?

He knows very well that he would have probably booked a seat in heaven the second the president’s lips met his own, but he couldn’t help but refrain out of the fear that he really can’t do something like this. Now that his feelings have complexified, he is now walking the tightrope along the risk of the president becoming saddened once more by a loved one, as well as canceling any hope for his mother living several more precious years. To step over this line would be to step over the line of safety and to run along the boulevard of risks, and Zitao isn’t sure he’s ready to take on that risk. 

Now that he soaks up the realization that he’s probably missed his one and only window of opportunity, however, Zitao kind of regrets it. 

He manages to keep the thought safely stored away in the back crevices of his mind until he heads out of the foyer doors and toward the back are of the company grounds where the shoot would be - as per Qian’s guidance, for Zitao had _no_ idea where the fuck to go - and he realizes far too late, as his shoes click dully on the coarse pavement of the walkway which winds intricately through the back-facing company gardens, that he is going to have company which remains less than desired. 

There’s a set organized for the shoot, an expensive-looking car painted a glossy bluish-silver which sparkles and glimmers beneath the daytime sunlight parked among the plush grass riddled with small white blossoms, softboxes absolutely surrounding the front end of the car on all sides as Mr. Park chats away with a girl that Zitao thinks he may have seen before, and he abruptly looks down and conceals his gaze as the president’s eyes shift over to him. 

Of course, it makes sense for the president to oversee, or rather conduct, a shoot that he’s involved in, but Zitao still isn’t ready to meet his eyes after what happened Friday night. The air between the two of them is thick with trepidation and hazy with untold words, and Zitao isn’t exactly sure what he can do to slice through the tension to permeate it with impassioned cooperation. 

Shy, he keeps his eyes on everything other than the president as he approaches the set and as the photographer catches the movement of his approach out of the corner of his eye, turning his head to him with a growing grin as he fiddles with his bulky camera, and says, “Miss Huang, you made it.”

Somehow, being called _Miss Huang_ by his colleagues and coworkers rather than _Yingtao_ still stings, but he knows that it is for corporeal respect purposes and that it is normal. Ignoring how he feels, Zitao nods and forces a little smile, almost-painful and slightly out-of-place. “I hope I’m not late,” is what he says as he wraps nervous fingers around the strap of his shoulder bag, and the photographer offers him a warm grin as the girl looks him up and down, foreign and someone he’s not yet met. “I didn’t know about this shoot until I checked the board - was it recently scheduled?”

“We just scheduled it first thing this morning,” is what Mr. Park tells him. “The president wanted to start shooting for next year’s summer collection, so what better way to conduct a photoshoot regarding the summer than to have it outside on a warm, sunny day?”

Oh. Zitao hadn’t thought of it that way, but he supposes that it makes sense. After all, the weather today is quite nice and the temperature had been perfect for a tweed skirt and a blouse with shorter sleeves, puffing out slightly at the shoulder and cuffing at the upper bicep, pretty and pastel-pink above the oxblood-cream mixed plaid of the skirt. “Okay,” he nods, his pulse rabbiting in his veins and against his ribs. He can feel eyes on him, insistent and heavy, and knows exactly what he would find if he were to glance back.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be alone on this one,” the photographer nods his head, professional and well-kempt with his swept-back hair and his unswayed gaze. “You’re scheduled alongside Kim Minseo and Park Sojin for this project, and President Wu is going to oversee to make sure it meets his expectations for next year’s launch.”

Zitao’s heart does a delighted little lurch at the mention that he is going to share the shoot with Minseo, and he glances over at the girl stood beside the photographer and meets her neutral gaze, unbiased and neither cold nor warm. Long, dark hair, glossy legs, big eyes - this must be Sojin, then, right? 

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Huang,” she says as though having read his mind, and Zitao’s eyes go a little bit wide at the mention of his name, not having expected to be spoken to. When the girl speaks to him, her hand extends for him to shake, and her cheeks shine in the sunlight as she grins at him with rouged lips. She’s nice, he thinks to himself, as he accepts her gesture and shakes her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Th-thank you,” he responds awkwardly, not knowing exactly what to say in a situation such as this. “Are you, um - are you in this department? I’ve never seen you around before.”

“No, I’m in recreation,” she smiles, and the breeze brushes some of her wavy, nutty hair over her shoulders. “I used to be in marketing for several years, but I was actually demoted last year because I was assisting in setting up a set much like this one and I slipped and sliced my thumb off. Don’t worry, I had it medically reattached - it’s still here,” she illustrates by lifting her hand and curling her thumb freely, proving that she does still have unrestricted movement, “but I had to be out of work for six months because I couldn’t even pick up articles of clothing to dress and undress myself, so the president demoted me out of frustration in my lack of work.”

Lips parting, Zitao soaks up her story as though lotion to expansive dehydrated skin. Great, _another_ example for him to use in his novel _Ways That President Wu Biases Me and Favors Me Because He Likes Me._ “That sounds so rough,” he sighs in disbelief, shaking his head. “He really wouldn’t let you move back up to marketing?”

“Of course not,” Sojin laughs a little bit, her shoulders shaking. “Then again, I don’t think the president has promoted that many girls to marketing in the last few years - he used to average maybe ten per year, you know? Lately, it’s gotten closer to two or three, but I’m not really sure why. I wonder if he’s planning to fire people soon, or if maybe he’s beginning to pay less attention to my department. How weird.”

Suddenly feeling like a sore thumb, Zitao swallows, shyly averting his eyes. It would make sense for the president to lose interest in paying attention to his employees who aren’t _Huang Yingtao_ and those who interact with her on a daily basis, wouldn’t it? Each and every day, this situation grows more and more surreal with each moment that Zitao lives it. 

He doesn’t get much time to respond before he feels someone approach him and is very quickly welcomed by engulfing arms wrapping around him in a brief little hug, as Minseo greets him and grins up at him at the realization that they are participating together today. Feeling much more respected than he had felt in the past few months, Zitao smiles, greeting his friend back.

Out of the corner of his eye, though, he senses movement and notices peripherally that the president has shifted from his spot from where he had been staring, the pressure immediately lifting from Zitao’s skin as it dissipates into the air, and has begun to stride toward the photographer and the folding chairs which sat prostrate around them, and Zitao stifles a swallow and averts his eyes as the president loudly announces that the shoot is going to start, and with long, lean, elegant grace, sinks sleekly into a ruby-red folding chair.

“Alright, girls,” Mr. Park releases his camera as he claps his hands together in excitement, the piece of equipment dangling readily from his neck by its thick canvassed strap. “Your outfits are over there on the rack - I’ve had the casings initialed so you shouldn’t have any problem finding your own individual clothes. The first set we’re going to run through requires the clothes in the casings with the red tags on them - we’re gonna do it on the hood of this car. Go on, go dress yourselves. And don’t take too long - you know President Wu hates to wait.”

Initiated and long-since-accompanied with this process, Sojin and Minseo leave his side and stride over to the rack of clothing off to the side, merely a few dozen feet away out in the blatant open where everyone can see. And when he says everyone - he means everyone. Even the president.

Is he - is he really supposed to change right here, right before the president’s own eyes? 

No, he can’t do that, certainly not after the awkward weekend he’s just had. 

Sure, all of the photographers here as well as the president have likely seen many half-naked female bodies before, worn thin to their ribs in their brassieres and underpants, but how many of those bodies has the president been genuinely and wholly attracted to? How many of those bodies have the president likely thought about undressing and seeing in the bare before his very own eyes? 

Left with no other option, Zitao has to learn how to be discreet. And being discreet proves to be something that Zitao really struggles with, for despite how much he does his best to conceal himself behind the bodies of two much smaller and much shorter women, he, as a six-foot male, is still very much visible behind them, and he practically rushes to put the coordinated outfit on himself with his backside presented to his onlookers as he does his best to keep himself hidden. 

Giving him a strange look as he slides his designated bodysuit up his torso and pulls the straps over his arms, Minseo snorts a little bit before she asks, “What are you doing, Yingtao?”

Truthfully, Zitao doesn’t know _what_ he is doing. “I don’t want the president to see me changing,” he whispers to her, and Sojin’s bright eyes watch on as they flit over to him, permitting herself entry into the conversation with not even so much as a single spoken word. “He’s right there - so, just, stand in my way like you have been.”

“Wait - it’s you who the president likes?” Sojin asks them quietly, her intonation more specifically directing it to him rather than Minseo beside him, and with the world completely against him as usual, Zitao’s body rolls through a hushed sigh, his eyes rolling ever so slightly to the side. Of _course_ , Sojin knows - doesn’t everybody by now? After all, the president’s love life seems to be a very common topic of interesting conversation in this firm, and given the events which have transpired in the past several weeks, Zitao has recently become a common topic of interesting conversation, himself. “Oh my God - ” the girl fawns, her pretty features crooning as a kind smile stretches out her glossy lips. “Elkie had mentioned something about the president having a new romantic interest, but she hadn’t given me any names. It’s really you?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Minseo giggles, pulling her assigned patterned jacket over her shoulders and Zitao realizes with a vision-clearing blink that he’s never actually seen the girl’s bare stomach before, soft and creamy and exposed beneath the stylishly-lettered bandaged hem of her cropped shirt, matte and black and looping down on an angle around her ribs which exposes all of her soft, creamy stomach, flat and slightly-toned and quite attractive, actually. It’s very unlike her, as someone who always wears pretty dresses and pastel colors, and Zitao finds himself impressed. “Trust me - just watch them interact for like, five seconds, and it’s painfully obvious.”

“Minseo,” he hisses as he bends down to buckle the straps on the shoes he’s been given, chunky and trendy and tall in a way that makes his legs seem as though they go on for miles. Zitao wonders if this shoot will be one of the rarer ones which include his legs, for he’s pretty certain that he could confidently claim his own throned seat as the Leggy Girl of the firm. “Way to not tell everyone. Now - can someone help me figure out what this thing is?” He asks with impatience in his voice, holding up what is simply a long strip of cloth in a matte black with white, stylish lettering which mirrors the lettering on Minseo’s shirt straps, the company’s initials over and over in a plain yet chic blocky font along the fabric. “I don’t know where they want me to put this.”

“Oh,” Sojin comments softly, reaching forward for the piece. “It’s probably a bandana or a hair strap. See? You are probably meant to wrap it around a ponytail, or even around the top of your head. Here, I’ll help you - just lift your hair for me?”

Kindly, Zitao follows her instruction and allows her to tie the piece of cloth around the top of his head and under his hair, and to keep everything tidy, she even helps him tie his hair back for him and hoists it high on his head, brushing it smoothly through with her fingers. When she finishes, Zitao does not have a mirror to gaze into to check the job she has done, but he takes her word of approval for it and assumes that it looks fine. 

When they pack the casings up and head back to the set area, they are immediately sat into folding chairs as women fall in line before them and begin to touch them up, and Zitao can’t resist falling confused as to why this seems so rushed as compared to however many other shoots he’s done indoors. Is it simply because it’s outdoors and it’s quite warm today that the women don’t want to stand beneath the beating sun for very long that they’re rushing to fill in Zitao’s eyebrows? He’s not very sure what the deal must be, but he lets it go and trains his attention on the swatches of paletted makeup along the lady’s hand who is tending to him. 

Zitao knows they must be done with touch-ups, however, when the president suddenly clears his throat and Mr. Park lifts his camera from its swaying before his chest, and Zitao’s pulse skips as he realizes the shoot is about to begin.

“Where do you want them, Mr. Wu?” Mr. Park asks him with an off-handish question tossed over his shoulder, and Zitao only manages a mere second of curious glancing before he meets two intense eyes, and instinctively shies his attention away as he glances down at the soft grass beneath him, stood on high pillars and practically _towering_ over Minseo and Sojin, a woman of merely average height, perhaps five-nine at best, and that’s being generous. With shoes with platforms such as these, Zitao wouldn’t be surprised if people began to mistake him for a professional women’s basketball player.

Meticulous as always, the president’s stance falls back merely a degree, inhaling smoothly as his face tilts back and his chin raises as he appraises the models stood several feet before him and the parked car diligently parked in the center of the crescent of softboxes. “Do some individual shots first,” is what the president says, one leg crossed over the other as he folds his hands in his lap. “Perhaps we could have Miss Kim and Miss Park against the hood, or perhaps against the driver-side door, or one of each, and to accommodate her height, I vouch that we have Miss Huang on top of the hood, facing front, so that she has somewhere to bend her legs.”

“Any particular order, sir?” The photographer asks him once more, and Zitao licks nervously over his bottom lip as his fingers instinctively find each other and begin to twitch.

“Organizationally, simply repeat the order which I have given you,” the president tells him stoically, the sun glistening down on his gelled-back hair and resonating it in warm brown tones, and Zitao really has to resist glancing over at how handsome he looks with his hair pushed back like that. _Focus, Zitao_. “Start with Miss Kim, and finish with Miss Huang. After that, I would like a few dual shots for diplomatic publicity purposes, and to finish, we shall take several group shots in different positions for the company promotions.”

“Alright,” Mr. Park turns his attention back to the three of them, all stood side by side awaiting positioning, and Zitao tries to discreetly swallow around a cottony throat. “Miss Kim, you’re up. Come on.”

Despite being dressed in a way which Zitao is absolutely not used to seeing on a girl such as herself, Minseo still has this precious trait to her as the photographer shoots her where she leans against the hood, hands planted delicately on it as her shirt stretches to expose a sliver of her cleavage and her hips arch to emphasize the rounding of her rear, and Zitao finds it so incongruously cute that they would organize a sexier shoot which includes someone with infant-cheeked expressions and hair that’s been tied in high pigtails.

What he likes about her, though, is how confident she is during photoshoots despite how often the outfits may completely go against her normal code of dress. They could have put her in pasties and a shoestring, and Zitao is certain she _still_ would have performed to the exact degree that she was expected of, a smug little smile on her face and all - and she’s not in marketing with him? God, Zitao is really going to have to smack some sense into the president and wake him up to just how talented his recreation models are. 

Then again - does that mean that Zitao is the only marketing model in this shoot?

For some reason, the thought makes him blush, as though he were chosen for this shoot with the intention to make him the rising star of it, two veteran models who once walked the grounds of the firm in marketed shoes yet who now serve as focal points for one of the president’s self-proclaimed highest sellers. 

Still, Zitao could laugh at the truth of the talent gap which differentiates him from Minseo and Sojin, two women so talented and so experienced and confident in front of a camera, yet who were demoted unfairly and were wrapped with beginner labels to water down their talent threshold, when Zitao still has moments of stiffness and insecurity when a photoshoot extends beyond his comfort zone such as this one. 

Sojin, on the other hand, Zitao would completely expect to be exactly the same both inside photoshoots and out, her midriff toned all the way down her stomach where she leans against the driver door as Mr. Park’s camera shutter clicks, a mischievous glint in the woman’s eye as the photographer asks her to _lower the shoulder of your denim jacket, yup, just like that_ , and she does, confidently so as she meets gazes with the camera and the shutter clicks loudly. 

“She’s a veteran,” Minseo whispers to him quietly as they stand to watch off to the side behind the softboxes, out of sight of the cameras, and Zitao nearly jumps right out of his skin as the girl’s voice gently tickles his ears, not having expected it. “Her thirty-second birthday is in a couple of months - Yooyoung was talking about it the other day because Sojin’s been here since the business opened. Did you know she was moved to marketing after only eight months? She’s just _that_ good.”

Zitao doesn’t find himself very surprised and could wholly agree as Sojin turns around, undirected, and folds an arm seductively across the roof of the car as her back arches. “So, then, why would they include me in this shoot alongside somebody like Sojin? I’m not nearly as good, and I’m pretty sure they all kind of know that.”

Snarky, Minseo grins and gives him the gentlest playful shove. “You already know the answer to that,” she says, and Zitao’s bottom lip nestles itself between his teeth in a nervous tug. 

Unfortunately, Zitao does know the answer to that and chooses to not respond out of the sheer fact that he has nothing else to respond with. 

When he glances back over at the set, Mr. Park has lowered his camera from his face and is speaking to Sojin up close, ample space between the two of them to still have a private conversation, and it’s only mere seconds before the photographer glances over to him and beckons him forth with a wave of his hand and a cheerful grin on his lips that he says, “Miss Huang, it’s your turn.”

Suddenly nervous, Zitao’s hands begin to shake as he nods on autopilot and steps around the softboxes to approach the parked car, trying his fucking best not to glance over and meet the pressure of those familiar eyes on him once more. 

“Alright,” Mr. Park gives him a curt nod, hands clasping his bulky camera on both sides as he continues, “what I’m gonna have you do is sit up on the hood right here, right on the center, and I’ll give you free reign from there to do whatever feels the most natural to you, okay? This is supposed to be casual, so I can’t have you looking awkward and distressed.”

Guiltily caught, he pouts. “Sorry.”

Zitao, at any time of the day, is a lot of things. Awkward, anxious, and shy are the first three things that come to mind, along with reclusive and definitely airheaded at times. One thing Zitao is oftentimes not, however, is prostrate on the polished hood of an expensive car with his shoes on the bumper and a laid-back posture, holding himself up with his palms behind him. By request, Zitao crosses one leg over the other and tilts his chin up, raising his chest slightly before the camera’s shutter clicks, and he assumes, with a mere ounce of confidence, that he’s done somewhat well.

Despite this, it proves to be difficult to find much more confidence when he’s much more underdressed than he usually is, and at the same time, is equally as covered as usual, the bodysuit tailored high-rise on the sides to expose nearly his entire obliques, as well as the prominent line of his pelvic dip, rather plain in a stark white with black piping and the company’s initials sewn across his bosom, and the only thing he had been given to wear on top of it had been a tiny little pair of shorts, something ripped and latticed with strips of cloth that match the one Sojin had tied around his head, and Zitao finds himself absolutely _terrified_ to uncross his legs.

Why did the president come up with the bright idea of planning a release to this degree of sensuality, anyway? Dismayed, Zitao huffs out a little sigh to himself as the photographer suggests that he lean forward and uncross his legs to arrange himself in a passive stance, a cheek resting against the thick of his palm, and when he catches movement out of his peripheral vision, he can’t stop himself from following it.

The president had adjusted his sitting posture in his folding chair, what was once something prim and proper with crossed legs and a sleek, flat expression has now become something slightly foreign, the man having uncrossed his legs and reclined back just an inch, half of his face hidden by his hand against his cheek as he watches the shoot with narrowed, dimmed eyes, and - oh.

 _Oh_. There’s _heat_ in those eyes, rich and licentious and _dark_.

Taken aback, Zitao’s heart thuds against his ribs as he finds himself unable to tear his gaze away despite the rhythmic snapping of the photographer’s fingers in his partial view, trying to gain his attention. Surely he’s imagining things - surely Zitao is hallucinating and is seeing things that aren’t actually there, like shadows out of the corner of his eye, or the glares of drive-by vehicles. Maybe this whole crush nonsense has begun to get to his head and has begun to make him imagine things, much like the way believing in something devoutly enough will eventually make it come true. 

As the shutter clicks again, he can’t help but shake the feeling that it’s not a farce and that he’s not actually seeing things, yet it’s far too inopportune of a time to glance over at his companions to see if they are seeing what he is seeing, and although not sexually experienced himself, Zitao knows libido when he sees it, for Luhan is constantly riddled with it. Surely the president doesn’t let his guard down this easily - surely he can hide his emotions better than this, right?

Testing the waters of his theory, Zitao finds that burst of courage that he’d been looking for, and as the photographer draws his attention away from the set to glance down at his photography gallery, Zitao leans back just a smidge and lets his legs fall open, bracing himself on the front bumper and bracing his hands behind himself as his face falls slightly back and his chin lifts, his hair pouring from his shoulders as he locks eyes with his boss. 

As Mr. Park realizes the position has changed and begins to fiddle with his camera, then, Zitao’s insides practically somersault as he watches the man in the chair merely a dozen feet from him lift his free hand from his armrest, and delicately drape it across the gusset of his trousers as his legs part to accommodate the room. Then, almost microscopically, the fingers curl down in a relieving yet absolutely filthy press, and Zitao’s mouth runs dry.

No, he’s fucking _seeing_ things. There’s no way he just watched the president grow aroused right in front of him, he’d likely sooner be fucking _dead_ than see such a thing.

Startled by the new discovery, Zitao’s skin has begun to heat and his loins have begun to yearn, and it’s only once the photographer’s camera clicks that he rapidly shuts his legs and stands from the hood of the car, needing to stop this _right now_ before he gets hard and ruins everything. 

There’s no way he just saw that - there’s no way.

“Can I take a bathroom break?” Zitao asks in a rushed, chimed voice, hot all over and downright craving both the cool relief of an awakening splash of water, as well as sultry hands draping soft, ticklish lines across his skin as they light him aflame, and right now, he’s torn between which one sounds better. 

As though not having expected such a request, Mr. Park’s eyes are slightly wide and his lips are slightly pouted as his hands still where they hold the camera, yet he gives him a jittered nod regardless, not one to turn down a model’s request. “Sure thing, but don’t take too long, alright?” He offers with a tight-lipped smile, and Zitao can see the apprehension in his eyes born from the pressure of this shoot, likely from the president’s characteristic hounding about time-sensitive management. 

Being considerate, Zitao does not intend to take too long, and merely needs to adjust himself to accommodate his half-hard cock where it’s pressed to his taint and just needs to collect his thoughts for one minute somewhere where there aren’t penises at every turn. 

As he nods and accepts his permission to turn away and walk toward the back of the firm to use the back hallway bathrooms, Zitao surreptitiously lifts a hand to skirt his palm against his cheek, fiery and hot to the touch as though having been sunburnt, yet Zitao knows his skin’s limits and knows that ten minutes out in the sun wouldn’t have even so much as made him warm. That had really happened - he had really aroused his boss just by existing and just by manipulating himself into a suggestive position, and Zitao can’t get the thrill of empowerment off of his skin as he recalls just how hungry the man had looked.

Zitao has _never_ seen the president look at him in such a way, and had only caught a simple shadow of it Friday evening, but this - this was intense, and Zitao presses a hand to his chest as he struggles to catch his breath.

 _This is all strictly professional_ , he tells himself as he steps into the furthest stall toward the back of the room and sits down on the closed seat, burying his head in his hands. _This is just a job_.

...Right?

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

  
Careful among the silent set, quiet enough to where they could hear a pin drop, Minseo nudges her gently with the careful press of a bony elbow. “You saw that, right?” She whispers softly, careful not to draw the attention of anybody nearby who could become nosy and involved. "You had to have seen that."

Turning to her with a smirk, however, Sojin only nods. “You were right,” she whispers back in response, “and it only took me those exact five seconds to see what you meant.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

Having swindled his way through several months of work quietly, quickly, and somewhat efficiently, Zitao feels poorly about his elongated decision to have kept it entirely secret from his mother. As he enters his sixth month since having been employed, it dawns on him that he still has yet to clue her in on what’s been going on, and although very grateful to have gotten to have his mom for another eight months, he cannot seem to quell the unease within himself knowing that she deserves the knowledge of what it is that he does to afford her life.

Still, he has not yet figured out _how_ he is going to tell her, for what, exactly, is he supposed to say? _Hey, mom, by the way, I make about nineteen-thousand a month because I dress up like a woman and get photographed as that woman. Essentially, I pay for your treatments by doing drag._ Sure, it seems simple enough, but now with the knowledge that his mother and his boss’ mother know each other, and _thoroughly_ well, at that, he’s not exactly comfortable telling his mother that the infamous _Yingtao_ that Lanfen’s son has his eyes on, was actually him.

“You’re quiet,” his mother mumbles in a hoarse tone, unfortunately, characteristic of her lately as her physicality has begun to slowly deteriorate, for Zitao knows that her time is likely slowly approaching and that there will be nothing that he could do to stop it. Softly, she trails her rounded nails soothingly across his scalp as she rakes through his hair in calm swipes, Zitao’s head nestled against her lap as they sit out on the balcony beneath the heat of the summer sun, his mother in her wheelchair and Zitao sat prostrate on the flooring beside her. “Is something on your mind, Tao-ah?”

As someone going through one of the most bizarre phases of their life they could possibly come across, Zitao has a lot of things on his mind at any given point. Currently, Zitao finds himself unable to focus on anything other than the stringent worry that he may lose his mother in merely several coming weeks should they follow through with the kidney removal, and as her familiar fingertips trail along his head, he finds his eyes tearing as he realizes just how much he will miss this. “I want to talk to you about something,” he tells her softly. “Do you, um… do you _have_ to donate to Lanfen? Like, absolutely have to?”

Slowly, his mother’s fingers still. “What are you trying to ask me, Zitao?” She questions in a tender voice. “I volunteered for this procedure so that I may give Lanfen a second chance at life, the second chance that I myself was not granted. Even though my time may be limited, that does not mean that hers should be, as well.”

“But why you?” He whines as he glances up at her, and his glossy eyes meet hers as he tucks his legs beneath him and seats himself on his knees. “Surely there must be another matching donor they could use - surely _somebody_ in this ward must have two working kidneys other than you.”

“Zitao,” his mother chastises with a petulant little sigh. “One thing you will eventually grow to understand is that the greatest gift you can give yourself is the knowledge that you saved somebody else’s life. When you are faced with one option only and no other which way to turn, you will realize that life is filled with freshly-bloomed opportunities, like summertime flowers - beautiful, poetic, and dusted with that morning’s dew. You will learn, in due time, that the greatest gift of all, my precious flower, is generosity and unselfishness.”

Sadly, Zitao pouts and shies his face away as he presses a knuckle to his under-eyes, catching the little leaking trails. “Why did it have to be you?” He whispers, voice hushed, as he loses all trust in himself that his tone would not be thickened. “Why? Why did life have to take the only thing that I have left away from me?”

His mother falls silent, then, but the movement of her fingertips resumes, and Zitao does not much like the lack of a response that he gets. After a long beat of silence, he hears the wheelchair creak slightly as his mother shifts her weight before she says, “When bad things happen to good people, it is often that destiny is putting forth its effort to teach someone in their circle a very valuable lesson. When I have to leave you, Tao-ah, I want you to always be strong for me and I want you to always look to the sky. When you find yourself out of options and unsure which fork in the road to take, look toward the sky. Find a different angle of life, and follow that path with the utmost decency of your own heart.”

Soggy, he whimpers against her leg and wraps his arms around her bare calf beneath her hospital gown, and her lips click softly above him as she coos him into a restless calm, reassuring him that everything will, in due time, be alright. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Hey, Yingtao, are you listening?”

Distracted, he jerks a little, sobering up practically on the spot which only grants him a forced migraine, as Minseo comes into view with her little oxblood pocketbook and her work folder pressed to her bosom. Guilt floods him, then, as he realizes that the girl had been trying to speak to him when Zitao, having been doing nothing lately but crying and staring at his bedroom ceiling as his mind continuously refuses to quit and denies him any thorough rest, is very much incapable of holding attention right now. “Sorry, um,” he mutters, sighing briefly as he blows out a breath and shakes his head. “What were you saying?”

She frowns, then, concerned as her dark hair falls down her shoulders. “I had asked you if you were attending the Recreation department’s company get-together next week. You know, the one to celebrate President Wu’s sales on his recent launch? We have one for every launch that goes well - are you coming?”

A company get-together? This is the first Zitao has heard of this, but regarding the fact that it is the Recreation department’s doing, he is not necessarily shocked that he has not been informed of it - for, with that being said, how would he even be allowed to attend if it were for the Recreation department? Much to everyone’s dismay here, he resides in Marketing, and with much need for economic reimbursement at the moment, Zitao does not have the inclination to move down a peg. “Why are you inviting _me_ to a Rec outing?” He asks her softly, brows knitted in confusion. “I’m not in your department.”

Then, Minseo giggles, a manicured hand coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes slit. “No, silly, the Rec department is just hosting it. Anyone can come - after all, it’s for the entire firm to celebrate. We’re thinking of going ice skating and then heading out for some dinner and maybe some karaoke afterward? It’ll be fun! You can drink, skate, sing, whatever you like. Whaddya say?”

As the offer sticks to his skin, Zitao’s expression placifies. Of course, it would be nice to get out for once and enjoy some time with his work friends, for Zitao is rather tense lately with everything on his mind at once. Still, the offer feels strange to him. “I’m not really a karaoke person,” he tells her sheepishly, shuttling out a little breathy chuckle. “And it’s been so many years since I’ve gone skating, too…”

“That’s okay,” she grins, shaking her head, “none of us are professional ice skaters, either. We’re going just for fun. You should come and have some fun, too, Yingtao - you need it. When was the last time you took a break from work and just had some fun by yourself? Come out with us, please?”

“I just don’t know if it’s my kind of scene,” he tells her, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he glances away, his hair gently shrouding his face. “I don’t know, I…”

Then, her gaze warms and sharpens, calculating as she looks into him. “Yingtao,” she coos softly, her voice just a step softer than before. “President Wu will be there.”

As though perfectly on cue, Zitao’s cheeks warm and his gaze lifts at the mention of the only man to have swindled his way into his heart in a very long time, and his face reactively flushes peach. “He’s going, too?” He asks rhetorically, whispering in quiet. 

“Of course,” the girl nods. “We can’t throw a company launch party without including the designer who publicized the launch. And besides - maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get to skate with him, Yingtao. Please come - pretty please, with sugar on top?” She begs him, and if Zitao were any softer of a maverick, he would have absolutely crumbled under the pressure like an overbaked cookie, but instead, he breathes out a rolling sigh and gives her a little nod, which causes her to squeal out in excitement and dive forward to wrap her arms around him in a hug. “Yay! Thank you so much, Yingtao! I promise it will be a lot of fun, okay? It’s next Friday night at five, okay? I’ll send you the address to the ice rink later.”

Awkwardly, he returns the hug with jittery hands before the girl pulls away and announces to him her leave to take her lunch, in which Zitao normally would join her, but as of recent, has been without much of an appetite due to his stress. He does suppose it is nice to look forward to going out on the town for once and being able to de-stress, but what is he going to do about the president being there? Ever since this past weekend, Zitao has not said more than a single word to the guy, constantly afraid that the awkward air in lieu of the almost-kiss they shared would be brought up and would flood Zitao head to toe with embarrassment. If he were to join a group outing, knowing his asocial self and his tendency to linger alone and stick to walls, how is he going to avoid communication with the president now? 

He finds himself distraught by it as he sinks back into the plush of the studio sofa, simply wanting to fall asleep and forget everything and not have to be responsible for this life any longer, and his lack of options begins to weigh down on his skin. What, out of every possible route of action, should he do?

The studio falls into comfortable silence, then, as he watches a photographer by the name of Mr. Chan and the studio coordinators assist in a shoot for a young lady, slender and quite short with long, tapering ruby-red curls and a rose-embellished gown as pristinely white as the winter snow, and Zitao finds her beautiful. She surely is the most eye-catching thing to be seen in this wing, as the photographers and coordinators are dressed in shades of black and muted grays and Zitao is in something pastel-cream and cranberry, safe and muted into the background shades of the studio as the girl gleams beneath the lights with her bright hair and her glossy skin. 

A thought as wild as the day floats into his mind, for what would he look like with eccentrically-colored hair such as hers? Would he look good in a similar shade of red, or perhaps a shade of strawberry-blonde? What about something more cool-toned despite the president’s distaste on cool tones on his skin, such as a lively blue or a pretty amethyst? Zitao has never before thought about dying his, but ever since being exposed to this much color in his daily life, Zitao has gained interest in a lot of new things that he normally wouldn’t.

As he simply exists in front of the set, watching from afar, the rhythmic clicking of the camera shutter lulls him into the shadow of a calm, helping to instill him with the comfort of familiarity as he watches as Joohyun steps forward as the photographer retracts his stance and begins to fiddle with the model’s hair, as Qian pulls something out of her pants pocket and shares a few words with them before she steps away from the set to look at the object. Zitao’s only seen it a few times and manages to recognize it as her company cell phone. Perhaps she needs to take a call.

Being that it is a Wednesday, Zitao does not have much to do today. Mondays and Fridays tend to be the busy days at the firm, as Mondays employ most of the company meetings and Fridays include most of the group photoshoots. Sure, he does have a shoot coming up in about an hour and some and has his regularly scheduled bracket of exercise down in the firm gymnasium after that for another hour, but this is one of the rare occurrences in which Zitao gets to simply sit back and watch. 

He wonders how much Minseo has to do each week, being from a different department than he - is her workload relatively the same, or is it far different? Is she granted more free time than he, or is she more swamped at that? Zitao hopes they don’t overwork the recreation models the way they do the marketing models. 

Briefly, he hears what sounds like a muted clap which causes him to glance over, and he realizes that Qian must have closed her company phone as she slides it into her pocket and begins to walk toward him, and instinctively, Zitao’s blood begins to chill. Although it’s never been anything before, he still cannot help the little burst of fright he gets whenever someone calls for him on the company phones because it is, more often than not, the president. 

Qian approaches him with a tight-lipped smile on her face, and Zitao can practically already read her thoughts as her hair sways past her when she says, “Hey, Yingtao. President Wu wants to see you up in his office.”

If their relationship were like any other, Zitao would have absolutely no problem in accepting the request and standing to head out of the studio and toward the elevators, but given this new secretly-intimate dynamic between the two of them, Zitao finds himself terrified to step foot into that office. What should happen if the air between them clears and the man tries to make another move on him? Zitao had gotten lucky once with his trusty inhibition to step away, but he knows that the soft spot within him only increases when the president is around and that he may not find himself able to reject it next time. 

Being that their relationship is not that of a typical boss and employee, Zitao sinks his teeth into his lip as he nods and gives his thanks to the coordinator before he stands from the sofa and takes trepid steps out of the studio in dread. 

He hadn’t been able to get the events from the shoot out of his head; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to find a way to forget the look in the president’s eyes that day, how hungry and starved for Zitao’s body he had looked, and unused to such a desire for himself, Zitao had gotten hot under the collar and needed to excuse himself before things got out of hand. That, out of everything that had transpired in the past several months, had been the line-crosser, and Zitao can no longer successfully deny, given his friends’ petulant complaining, that the president wants him. 

Anxiously, Zitao sucks in a breath as he raises a hand to knock on the frosted glass of the president’s office doors, and his heartbeat spikes when the president’s familiar deep voice floats against the barrier between them and invites him in. 

Instinctively, he bows upon entry, pardoning himself as though he were somehow a discrepancy to the president’s working time. When he stands back up, then, he notices that there is a man stood at the forefront of the president’s desk, of average height and average stature with a rather handsome appearance. When Zitao’s eyes slide from the man over to his boss who stands merely several paces away behind his desk with his hands tucked handsomely behind his back, his eyes meet those familiar dark ones and he watches them narrowly sharpen, and his hands begin to shake. 

“Miss Huang,” the president says flatly along a rising tone, as though the two men had been waiting for his arrival. “There is someone here who would like to speak to you.”

He nods, then, jerky and slightly sporadic, as he does his best not to think of how it pains him to see that the president has once again shed his intimate facade and has tucked himself right back into the safety of their platonic square one. As though seeing his window of opportunity, then, the man who had been standing in the president’s air turns on his heel and strides toward Zitao with gaited steps and holds out a hand for him to shake. 

“You’re Huang Yingtao, yes?” The man asks him, quite handsome in the face and with a very homely smile, and albeit very awkward, Zitao manages to swallow his shame and return the handshake. “Kim Jongin, Advertisement Exec of _Grazia Korea_. We’ve been viewing your public prints for several months now and have gotten into routine contact with this company, and we would like to invite you to do a collaborative commercial to exploit our newest dancewear launch.”

The words sinking in, Zitao’s lips part softly and his eyes widen as the man demonstrates the words he speaks with theatrical movements of his hands, and his insides chill from the newness of what it is that he is being asked to do. “A - a commercial?” He repeats softly, unsure of what it is he is hearing. Is he going to be on _television_? “I…” 

“You may have time to ponder the offer,” Mr. Kim tells him, his countenance very approachable and his aura genuine as Zitao simply watches his genuine air roll off of him like sweat. Perhaps he is being too naive. “My company is very interested in partaking with _KW Enterprises_ to behold this launch, and we are very prepared to move forward with the operation to present to you the knowledge of all you will need to successfully execute this project.”

“Executive Kim is a highly-trained choreographer,” the president speaks up, and Zitao’s heart does a funny little leap as the domesticity of the man’s voice brings him a strange sense of comfort, as though he had been yearning to hear it again, “as well as a skilled entrepreneur. This project would involve aerobic choreography for you to learn and perform under the guise of he and his trained partners, as well, who may assist you on these company grounds on a routine basis.”

“We are prepared to commission you for this, Miss,” the man grins at him, sliding a hand into his trouser pocket as he continues to speak with motions of the other. “The estimated reach for the bandwidth of  the impact this commercial may sustain has been estimated around seventy-five million people, and at a rate of three-percent given that you are only a collaborative member of a foreign institute, your estimated payment would gross around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Then, his heartbeat skitters to a stop. One hundred and fifty-thousand? Zitao would never have to worry about falling victim to a deficit in his mother’s bills again, and the knowledge of such has his eyes threatening to tear up. “One,” he mumbles, quiet and stoic as he succumbs to the shock. “One hundred and…” 

“Articulate your sentences, Miss Huang,” the president tells him off to the side - no, coaxes him, rather, for his voice is strangely softer than usual when at work. “You will have one week from today to respond with your decision regarding this collaboration, and in the event in which you turn the offer down or fail to deploy a response, the offer will be passed onto someone else.”

Still, it’s a little bit strange. “I can’t dance, though,” he admits softly, awkwardly, lips attempting to quirk into a humored smile as though he were attempting to tell a bad joke. “I’ve never… in my life…” 

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Kim reassures him. “My dancers are very well-trained and well-equipped to guide you through this project to the best of their abilities, and I would only assign the most capable of employees to be your assistant in this project. You will have ample time to learn the routine and practice it with my employee, and only once you are comfortable with your progress and are confident enough to have it videotaped, will we begin the recording.” 

As it becomes more and more clear what his situation is here, his vision begins to blur as tears slowly well up, and his hands wring together as he realizes that the president, despite everything Zitao has put him through and has done to cause him stress, has gone above and beyond to support Zitao the very best he can, and if they were the only two people in the office right now, Zitao is absolutely certain that he would have darted forward and tucked himself into the president’s arms to be held and coddled as he would thank the heavens and the skies above. “But,” he begins again, timid and shy, “why me?” He asks, knowing very well the answer, yet he simply wants to solidify the idea by hearing it with his own ears. He wants to be told what it is that he knows to be fact. “I mean - surely there must be somebody else in the department who may actually be good at dancing when I am not, and - ”

“Your sales,” Mr. Kim interrupts politely, and Zitao falls quiet, “have practically skyrocketed since the media caught wind of your ankle fracture. In fact, you are in such high demand, young lady, that you are now considered to be in the top twenty percentile of the highest-grossing models in the country.”

Then, Zitao stops, a single tear flitting down his left cheek. This must be a dream - he _must_ be dreaming, for never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that he could have swindled his way into the hearts of this country so quickly and so efficiently by trying his best to make money. Thankful, his chin begins to tremble. 

Unused to Zitao’s emotions, however, Mr. Kim’s face falls as he reaches forth a hand, tender and forgiving as though vying himself to catch the model should he collapse, and Zitao tries to stabilize his spirit by covering his mouth as he sniffles. “Mr. Kim, I - ” he starts to reply, unsure of how to respond. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Executive Kim,” the president intervenes with a smooth tone, and Zitao’s glossy eyes flit over to him. The man is intimidating, stoic, and every bit as handsome as Zitao hates him to be. “I should inform you of a piece of fractal company knowhow that, of which, you have not been informed. Miss Huang is not a lady of many words - likewise, she often stumbles and stutters and finds herself inarticulate and reticent. I can assure you, however, that your offer is very well-received despite her voicelessness, and I can promise you that we will respond to the proposal in a week’s time.”

“Oh,” the man responds, his lips spreading and curling into a grateful, unprofessional smile. “Of course. Take all the time that you need to process it - is this her first collaborative project, sir?”

“It is,” the man nods his head, and Zitao’s cheeks pink. “Do not fret, nevertheless. Miss Huang is a very hard worker and I will not display mediocre work in any form under my company name. Now, if you will excuse us, there are work-related matters that I have yet to discuss with Miss Huang, which shall remain confidential by partisan discretion.”

“Of course,” the choreographer repeats, and with courtesy in his expression, he bows to them both as he shakes Zitao’s hand and delivers his goodbye. “Thank you very much for your participation and I hope to hear back from you,” is the last thing he tells them before he lets himself out of the office, leaving it in a hushed silence. Had Zitao not been the one he was here to speak to, he would have thought that the man was trying to pick someone up for a date by how flippant and joyous his personality had seemed. 

Now that there is no third-party to deflect the matters at hand any longer, Zitao’s anxiety has made an ugly return as he feels the president stare at him, boring holes into his skin as the model turns his eyes to the floor. Timid, Zitao does his best not to look up, for he is almost positive that he knows what is coming. 

Belatedly, then, as he is standing in the quiet of the president’s office, the sound of movement registers in his ears, specifically the sound of rustling fabric, and when he glances up curiously for a mere split-second, he notices that the man has turned his gaze away, staring off to the side as though in deep thought. Then, he takes a slow breath inward that broadens his shoulders where he’s stood slightly hunched before he says, “I owe you an apology, Miss Huang.”

It’s softspoken and gentle, unusually tender, and Zitao looks away once more as he realizes what this must be about. “For what?” He asks carefully, his tone small, for it’s much easier to play the guessing game than to go out on a limb and make it obvious that he had been thinking about it, too. 

It must have been an unexpected response, for the president goes quiet and his head tilts upward, and when Zitao glances back over, he realizes that the man is staring at him with a pressed expression, almost pained, and guilt floods his chest as he realizes he must have been misunderstood. “Do not be foolish,” the president tisks, shaking his head as he lifts his stance from the desk and slowly strides around the shape of it, sleek and handsome in his aubergine hand-tailored suit. “Especially not when your makeup has smudged.”

Quietly, Zitao can only exist in his place as the president reaches for his tissue box which he keeps at the corner of his desk and plucks a single tissue from it, wraps it around one of his forefingers, and with mundane, timely steps, begins to walk toward the model.

Zitao, smitten and trying very hard not to show it, could literally drop dead on the spot when the president reaches forward a broad hand, merely a foot away from him and plenty close enough for Zitao to be able to smell his cologne, and says, “Look up.”

He barely gets a whole second to gather his wits about him before there are gentle fingers brushing the side of his cheek as a thumb presses gently to his chin right beneath his lip to tilt his face up just a smidge, very much like the way the president had done during his second interview, except this time it’s different. This time, the fingers are much softer and lack much haste, simply touching him and no more than such. Nervous as his heartbeat quickens, Zitao quickly shuts his eyes tightly so as to not make eye contact with him. 

Quietly, the president lets out a huffed breath. “What are you doing? Open your eyes.”

Despite feeling like the ground may cave in beneath him at any moment, Zitao does exactly as he is told and flutters his eyes open, delicate and pretty and stares back into the darkest brown eyes he has ever seen. To avoid prolonged staring, he turns his eyes upward and begins to bore holes in the ceiling, just as he had been instructed. 

Then, he feels a careful, papery, rhythmic pressing beneath the balls of his eyes as the president’s finger knuckle dabs delicately at his under-eyes, fixing his smudged makeup in silence, and Zitao’s heart soars at how gently he is being treated, as though he were fragile and may break. “My apology,” the president begins to speak, voice soft and tone low, and Zitao struggles not to look back down, “is in regards to how I behaved at the company banquet last week.”

Zitao knew this would be coming, and although they are practically toe to toe in proximity right now, he can’t stop himself from swallowing around a cottony throat, the sound thunderous on deaf ears. Truthfully, he’d much rather not talk about it to save himself the embarrassment of vilifying that he is, indeed, conversing with his own boss about how they almost kissed. “It’s okay,” he replies in clipped tones as the pressure beneath his eye disappears for a long second, as the president readjusts the tissue to mark off a clean spot before he begins to clean up the other eye. “It - it’s alright, really.”

Nevertheless, the president lets out a long, hefty sigh. “It is not alright,” he reiterates sternly despite the tenderness in his tone. “I should not have acted that way. I… I should not have put you in such an uncomfortable situation without even having asked.”

Nervously, Zitao closes his eyes. “No,” he mumbles, and the undulating pressure stops. “I wasn’t… uncomfortable.”

It must not have been the response that his boss had been expecting, for the room becomes blanketed in thick silence as words fall away and Zitao’s heart races in his throat, a deep, thick _thok_ with each pulse of blood down his extremities. “Were you not?” The president questions in a low tone, voice slightly husky. “How could you not have been? Not when I…” _tried to kiss you without your consent because it was the heat of the moment_ , Zitao finishes in his mind.  

Little does his boss know, however, that Zitao would likely never have _not_ consented to a free kiss from those lips, especially not when it was additionally consensual on his end, as well. “No,” he repeats, and the man’s brow furrows very slightly, almost imperceptibly. “I just, um… I didn’t want to do that… there. We were… in public.”

Silently, the air around them begins to thicken as an unspoken compromise is reached within their distance, a mutual understanding of inconveniences among impressionable minds as the man’s hand falls away and the dirtied tissue flutters to the ground, black-stained and forgotten as the dynamic shifts. Zitao could call it a mistake, overstepping a line he once idolized and swore to keep in place as he begins to tumble down the cliff, for the look in the man’s eyes is passionate and warm, as though someone had just offered him their hand in marriage, and Zitao finds himself entranced. 

The real fate-sealer proves to be only a few seconds later as Zitao’s throat works in a nervous swallow, something which manifests as the delicate, precious brush of fingertips along the skin of Zitao’s cheek, simply caressing as though he were afraid of breaking him, and the boy’s teeth sink into his bottom lip as his cheeks pink. “I apologize,” he is told sympathetically, and before he knows it, the president is closer, now, merely several centimeters away whereas Zitao had been allotted plenty of personal space before, now nearly chest-to-chest in the man’s office stood before his desk in the silence of the wing. “If we had not been in public,” the president mumbles to him now that their proximities have shrunken and the need for louder volumes no longer exists, “would you have stopped?”

Gulping, skin beginning to jitter, Zitao does not know. Rather, he does not know if he is lacking the knowledge or if he is simply afraid to admit the answer to himself. “I,” he mutters quietly, the words dying out in his throat as the man’s hand slides slowly forward, skirting along Zitao’s cheek as it brushes his hair back and behind his ear, and a shiver rushes through him as the look in the man’s eyes darkens. “I… I don’t know.”

“You do not know?” The president whispers to him, merely centimeters apart and it would be so easy for Zitao to just lean forward and claim his long-anticipated kiss, to just cross the line and officially step into unfamiliar intimacy and break all of his previous morals about keeping his work experiences professional and give into sin. “Or, rather, if we had not been in public… would you have wanted to do it again?”

“Sir, I have to have my lunch,” Zitao interrupts gently, hoping to be able to somehow flee this situation before he oversteps his own boundaries and causes irreversible damage to the president’s heart. “I still haven’t eaten yet.”

Nevertheless, the man ignores him as he inches closer to follow Zitao’s gaze as he tries to look away, refusing to let the model out of his sight as he says, “You were asked a question, Yingtao, and I expect an answer,” and when Zitao glances back as another hand slides tinglingly up his arm, his heartbeat skips as the president suddenly drags him close, pressing them front to front which causes the boy to intake a little gasp. “Would you have wanted it if you had a choice of the scene?”

Gulping as his pulse beats rapidly along his skin, filling his body wholly with shocked warmth, Zitao’s hands stutter by his sides as the president’s thumb glides comfortingly over his cheekbone, his fingertips sliding back into the tracks of the model’s hair. “Sir,” he whimpers quietly, very nearly collapsing as that same thumb grazes the round of his bottom lip which causes his knees to soften. “I…” 

“You?” The president whispers, voice hushed and practically inaudible. “You what?”

He’s so close, he’s practically millimeters away and his lips are _right there_ , soft-looking and peachy and plush, and Zitao doesn’t have the self-control to resist such a temptation. He’s losing this battle very quickly, as a warm hand tucks itself into his hair and another slides warmly against the small of his back, holding him as though a precious little jewel, heart pounding and skin beating in time. He’s so close, he’s _so close_. 

Weak and smitten, Zitao’s eyes flutter closed, granting him unspoken permission. Slowly, the president shifts slightly forward.

Noisily, then, the office’s side door clacks loudly as the handle turns and the glass opens, and Zitao’s heart plummets as he rips himself from the intimate hold and backs away, his hip roughly colliding with the corner of the president’s desk as they untangle. Beside him, the man’s expression solidifies in annoyance as he takes a quiet step backward, granting the model personal space. Papers in hand, the vice president steps through the door as he announces, “Sir, I’ve printed out your updated terms and regulations to implement into your collaboration contracts - oh, hello, Miss Huang,” the vice says, stoic and passive as his surprise reigns evident across his features, as though not having expected the model, of all people, to be stood awkwardly in the president’s office while the man’s hands clench at his sides. “Was I interrupting something?”

“No,” the president bites, his tone quite stern and Zitao can hear the annoyance in his voice, interrupted at the least convenient time. Embarrassed, Zitao gives them both a quick, quipped little bow before he strides out of the president’s office with loud clicks of his shoes and closes the glass doors behind him.

With the model gone, the man’s office is silent once more, save for the rhythmic hush of breathing and the occasional whispering snap of the papers in the vice’s hands. Ever since the banquet, he had been annoyed that the girl had walked out on him in the most important moment of all, incredibly indicative of the fact that he made her uncomfortable, and yet she stood here, fragile and open as ever, insisting she hadn’t been uncomfortable and idiosyncratically offering him the opportunity to do it again. Now, to have the same opportunity ripped from his hands a second time by yet another interrupting factor, he lets out a sigh as he braces a hand on the edge of his desk and sets his jaw, mood worsening by the second.

However, his vice is not nearly as blind as those around them might think, and the corners of his lips begin to quirk up into a little smirk before he says, “I can hear your heartbeat from all the way over here, you know.”

“Shut up,” the man snaps in a low tone, sliding his free hand into his trouser pocket as he glances away. Surely his face has not flushed as though he were a lovelorn teenager, and surely his vice will have no qualms about such an unconfirmed sight. “You should have your hearing checked - you are imagining things.”

“You like her,” his vice comments without missing a beat, his words bright and bold without fail. “You - you’ve _fallen_ for her, haven’t you?”

Suddenly self-aware of the thrumming of blood in his veins that matches the pounding in his chest, the man presses his lips tightly together as he glances back at his vice with a gaze very little less than bitter. “I have done... no such thing,” he reiterates harshly. “We were discussing her first corporeal collaboration with _Grazia_ \- Executive Kim had stopped by to speak with her.”

“Sure you were,” grinning slightly, Vice Zhang steps forward and settles the papers in his hands onto the man’s desk for him to read later, and as he approaches, the man’s broad shoulders go defensively rigid. “You forget that I know you better than that, _President Wu_. You were doing something with that Huang girl before I walked in, weren’t you?”

“No,” the president snaps in a whisper, not wanting to be reminded how very close he’d gotten to doing something yet having been interrupted each time. “She was just… I had to fix her makeup for her. The offer caused her to cry, being so that everyone knows how emotional she can get, and her mascara had started to run and I felt obligated to clean it up before it messed up her under-eye concealer. That’s all.”

Unconvinced, his vice offers him a tight-lipped grin behind the man’s back and reaches forth a hand to comfort him by laying it on a broad, crisply-clothed shoulder in moral support. “Yifan, if there is something between you and her, you can tell me. It’s been ten years - don’t you think it’s time for you to try to settle down with someone new? After all, isn’t that what Mochou would have wanted was for you to be happy?”

Then, the man slowly turns on his heel, as though time itself were in slow-motion, and presents his vice with a pained expression, his eyes glassy and distant and his expression lines stressed. “How would you know what Mochou would have wanted?” He whispers, throat working as he fights back the tears and the memories. “I cannot get close to another person this way because when I do, bad things occur. I let myself get close to Mochou, and it got her fucking killed. I let myself get close to my mother, and she developed kidney disease and now forgets who I am if I disembark on a business trip for more than three damn days. If I let her in… someone will get hurt.”

“Yifan,” the man sighs, “you can’t live your life in perpetual existential fear. What happened with Mochou was an accident, and you _know_ that. Your mother, although being a heavy smoker when you were a baby, was a great mother to you - let me _finish_ ,” he stresses when he notices the man open his mouth as though to speak, “but did she not begin to forget things when you were only fifteen? She sent you on a private flight to Paris when you were only eighteen to visit the world of fashion, and she even managed to snag you your first job. Yifan, things happen for a reason. Whatever happened in the past can’t be reversed, you’re right, but you can change your future by working to make it better, because the only person hurting your future, right now, is _you_. And you, as a troubled person, need to find within yourself what it is that you want to do.”

Sighing, the man closes his eyes and shakes his head, unwilling to admit it to himself. He is cursed - that is the only explanation he can make of it all, for why else would everyone who works their way into his heart eventually have something go horribly wrong in their lives? “I have no idea what I want,” he admits quietly, “but I do not want to hurt her.”

“You won’t,” Vice Zhang promises gently. “She’s head over heels for you, Yifan, everyone can see it. Sure, it’s certainly not the first time one of your employees has fallen for you - what, with you and your lascivious traits - but could you not agree, wholeheartedly, sir, that this is the first time that you have fallen for an employee? You shouldn’t stay single forever - you’re only making yourself miserable with woe. Believe me when I say that there is nothing more I want than to see you thrive and succeed in your business, but are you truly ever happy being this alone?”

The man doesn’t respond, falling silent as the seconds stretch on, for his vice is entirely and wholly right. This past decade, he has done nothing but worry himself sick over worrying that he may be responsible for another person’s death simply by existing in their life, and should he have so brazenly overstepped his boundaries with her, he would have been exposing her to this curse of his and she would have gotten hurt - or worse, killed. Of all things to happen, he absolutely cannot have that happen.

“Think about it,” his vice tells him softly with a supportive pat on the back, but Yifan does not respond. “If you decide you want to talk about it, I’m right next door.”

Sighing, he presses his fingers to his temples. _What do I want to do?_

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
“It’s fucking freezing in here,” Zitao hisses, shivering as he swipes his hands up his clothed arms, brushing the wooly tweed of his cable-knit sweater, cream in color and roomy along his limbs. Having had an intuition that a place for ice skating would be rather cold, he had dressed in a thick, cappuccino-plaid skort with a stylish front flap to cover the inset shorts, coupled with white, fleece-lined leggings and soft, plush little white earmuffs. As he complains, his long, wavy hair falls down past his shoulders when he reaches down to lace up his bladed boot, and Minseo laughs at him.

“We’re going ice skating and ice, somehow, turns out to be cold,” she giggles, smiling to herself as she yanks her ties tight. “Who would have thought?”

Rolling his eyes, Zitao shakes his head. “Shut up,” he snorts, knotting off his ties. 

Along the sidelines of the rink, Zitao had caught sight of over a dozen of his coworkers whom he managed to get to know on a first-name basis, Baekhee having walked in chatting up Yooyoung with their hair in cute, matching dual-buns while several of the girls from Marketing take pictures together in the hallway wall mirrors. Of course, being from such a populated modeling firm, Zitao had lost count of how many girls actually showed up, far too many to keep track of as they file in linked arm-in-arm with their friends, all girly and delicate and pretty, naturally so where they exist so naturally and unabashedly. Not quite the same, Zitao feels a little bit estranged. 

As he slides his thickly-socked foot into his other boot, he can’t help but wonder, despite all attempts to free his mind of such topic, where the president may be. Having arrived quite early before their deadline of five in the afternoon, Zitao would have expected to see him waiting punctually at the front doors, yet, much to Zitao’s chagrin, the man had been nowhere to be found. Assuming the obvious, Zitao’s mood dampens in disappointment. Despite losing control of his composure not once, but twice around the man yet again, Zitao craves his presence. In a way, it’s almost as though to be away from him is to simply be alone, as though he does not exist, and while Zitao may be afraid to admit to himself his desires, the idea that the president prefers him fills him with a homely comfort, and he’s begun to want more. 

“Have you been skating before?” He asks her as he sits back in his spot, hands tucked behind himself as he leans his weight back and glances down at his work, slightly uncomfortable as the sleek, beige boots hug his ankles tightly where he’s practically corseted himself into them. “I probably asked you that before, already. Sorry.”

Despite his fractured memory, Minseo shakes her head and laughs as her braids fall down past her shoulders. “You’re fine,” she promises him sweetly. “Yeah, I go skating occasionally, but it’s not like a routine hobby of mine. I go maybe a couple of times a year? Oh - did you know that Xiyeon used to be a figure skater? She’s so good, you have to watch her sometime!”

Quietly, Zitao gives a slight pout. He doesn’t think he’s had any assignments with Xiyeon yet - is she in Recreation, or is she perhaps in Marketing? As he does not know her nor of her appearance, he doesn’t even know if she is attending the company outing tonight. “I’m really no good at it,” he tells her sheepishly. “I think I went… probably once. As a kid. Yeah, I’m… really bad at it.”

“That’s okay,” she tells him. “Skating is just for fun - you don’t have to be great at it. Hey, besides, I can hold your hand, if you want. We can skate together and that way you don’t have to feel that awkward about it, yeah?” 

Well, he supposes it’s not that bad of an offer, considering Zitao truly has not been on skates in over twelve years and is very likely to slide about and make a mess of himself. Shyly, he sinks his teeth into his bottom teeth. “Okay,” he agrees, flattered to have a friend as outgoing and helpful as she. 

Albeit awkward, Zitao manages to stand and walk in the skates with Minseo’s help, a complete reversal of their normal dynamic whereas Minseo tends to need his help, rather than the other way around. Now, Zitao is managing to learn how to walk on new ground with Minseo’s arm around his waist, guiding him to the rink. 

As they head around to the front entrance, then, Zitao’s concentration slackens and he nearly trips over his own blades as he realizes that most of the girls have gathered there, as though in a herd, and when he looks closer, he realizes that their formation revolves around the one and only man they all know on a personal basis, stood in the middle of the group as though a lecturer. 

Despite this, the man’s back is thankfully to them as Zitao nestles himself into the background blur of several other girls, albeit much shorter than him considering he is on skates, and Minseo’s hand slithers away from his waist as she gives him a knowing little smirk and links arms with another one of her friends as they whisper hello. “Our rental period extends only until six,” he hears the president announce informatively, bold as he usually is at work with resonant words that stick to his skin. “Should you be attending dinner with the rest of us tonight, I would expect to see you all out in the foyer at exactly six-fifteen and none the later. Do I make myself clear, ladies?”

Zitao nods to himself, for he understands. “Yes, Mr. Wu,” he chimes in with the girls, his voice blending into the hums of theirs. 

Then, his clustered little audience begins to dissipate as the president dismisses them, and Zitao’s pulse skips as his view of his boss comes into full perspective, and his heartbeat stammers. Although having seen him out in public merely a handful of times and no more, Zitao has never seen the man dress necessarily _casually_ \- for, for what feels like the very first time, the man is dressed in a thick, warm, woolen-knit sweater in an attractive unsaturated beige, comfortable and wintery along with something Zitao has never seen him wear - _jeans._

Tight, dull, light-washed denim jeans which hug the man’s legs in a way straight-lined trousers do not, and Zitao can see practically every curve of his lower figure that he’d never gotten to see before, and his cheeks rapidly begin to heat as he finds himself staring, for how can he not? In this casual of attire, Zitao is now blessed with the sight of lean, muscular thighs and the attractive rounding of the man’s rear that makes him blush. As a person of far too soft a heart and far too much desire for the person in front of him, Zitao finds it incredibly stressful to tear his eyes away.

As though aware that he was being stared at, then, eyes land on him and Zitao makes the foolish mistake of glancing up and falling victim to the grip of the president’s gaze right into his own. Much to his own dismay, the man’s eyes are customarily soft and compassionate, not at all rigid and unforgiving as he is used to when at work and when not in a scene with him, and Zitao’s heartbeat skips as the memories of nearly kissing him twice already begin to float back into his conscious. 

Suddenly shy, Zitao forcibly looks away and hopes that the pressure on his skin isn’t the weight of the man’s eyes, despite the fact that he knows that it is. For now, this situation is going to remain strictly skating, for Zitao is going to skate, and the president is going to, as well, only separately. _This is going to stay strictly casual_ , he thinks to himself as he braces his hands on the rink walls and eyes the ice just inches below. _If I just don’t look at him, he’ll probably leave me alone._

He takes a slow step forward, then, cautious as he steps onto the ice with one foot and keeps his toes down before the slippery friction washes him away. Minseo is off to the side with one of her other friends, chatting away against the rink wall as they wait for Zitao to join them on the ice. _Careful, be careful._

“Miss Huang,” he hears, then, and a bolt of embarrassment races through him like lightning as he instinctively glances back. The president is looking at him, a hand slightly outstretched as though he had been planning to reach out and touch, and his expression is completely lax. “Be careful,” is what he continues with.

Smitten, Zitao blushes and forces himself to nod, as it’s a little bit hard to articulate words right now. 

He steps onto the ice casually and cautiously, his arms swaying just slightly as he fights to find his balance, and manages to stand up completely with his legs slightly spread as he manages to not fall right back down. As he begins to try to take his first step, Minseo catches sight of him and smoothly skates away from the wall and slides right by him, offering him support with a warm, “Careful! Baby steps, you got it.”

Minseo is helpful as ever as she guides Zitao at his own pace, wrapping her hands around him as he gets a feel for moving about on the ice, albeit very slowly, and coaxes him to begin pushing off and moving forward. 

The first time he stumbles is when he forgets how to even push off and go, and he spends a meager, uneventful several minutes fruitlessly toeing at the ice and kicking little nicks into it with the edges of his blades in frustration, before he begins to feel as though he may cry if he doesn’t figure out how to kick off and make himself skate. With some soft reassurance and promises of patience, Minseo encourages him to keep trying and distracts him from the thought that hundreds of eyes could be on him and could be judging him for being terrible at ice skating, and he manages to kick off just a little bit. As he jerks his head around to gaze at her in pride, his face alight in happiness, he realizes that he’s managed to successfully skate all by himself.

The second time he stumbles, however, is when he feels brazen and decides hey, maybe he’s not so bad at this, after all, and he pushes off without restraint, gliding across the ice in awe. The burst of confidence fell in vain, however, as he quickly realized he had bitten off more than he could chew and had begun to spiral without knowledge of how to properly stop himself, and in a panic with flurrying limbs, Zitao begins to teeter. 

“Watch out!” He hears Minseo call out in worry as the sound of scraping meets his ears, yet he doesn’t get any time to look over and watch her approach him as his legs slide out from under him and his world spins.

What he expects and what he gets prove to be two entirely different things; what he expects is the hard, unforgiving, painful crack of his skull against the hard ice as his shoulders had begun to go down first when he had attempted to aim for his side rather than his back. What he gets, despite his inhibitions, is gentle safety, the soft touch of something having protected him from the despicable truss of the rigid ice, and he lets out a shuddering, anxious breath in relief as his heart pounds away in his chest and vibrates his skin. 

Then, as a pulse of shock rushes through him when he glances up to see what it was that he had landed on, his chest pulls tight as he stares right back into the president’s eyes, concerned and dark as he brackets the model in with his body. Zitao had landed right in his arms like a newborn baby, his back and abdomen straining from having kept himself slightly off the ground with the man’s physical support, having been cradled and protected from likely cracking his skull right open. Behind his boss, however, is an incredibly stunned Minseo, practically having had a heart attack right on the spot judging by how big her eyes have gotten and how pale she suddenly seems, and if Zitao didn’t know her better, he would be concerned she was anemic and were about to faint. 

Swallowing, his lips tremble as he tries to articulate a response as the president stares down at him and doesn’t let him go. “Mr. Wu,” he manages to stutter out, his body alight with anxiety. “What… what are you doing?”

Snarkily, the man cocks a single eyebrow without much else expressional change. “I thought that would have been rather obvious,” he says, his voice warm and low. “You should be presently aware that you have not been physiologically correct since your fracture - I told you to be careful.”

Yes, it may be true that Zitao’s ankle has not been _perfect_ since his injury, but is anyone’s ever after a physical trauma? He has not so much had an issue with walking since the fracture, but his mobility with that specific ankle has felt more limited, lately, yet Zitao had just been chalking it up to stiffness from being so unused to being on his feet that much. Of course, maybe that last part hadn’t made much sense, because he’s been heavily reliant on his feet for nearly a year, now, but he’s always open to making excuses. “I’ll - I’ll be fine,” he vouches nervously. “Really, you can… let me go now. Everyone is… staring.”

Nevertheless, the president is passive and uncaring, even so much as giving off a shrug as he allows Zitao to scoot back and reclaim his personal space. “So?” He asks. “Was it not one of my stipulations when working beneath me that your welfare and overall health were my number one priority?”

He could scoff, really, because it’s just another excuse. Sure, Zitao understands that the man, should anything happen to any of his models and especially the ones in higher demand such as himself, would be held immediately accountable as the first line of offense, but Zitao also understands that out of over a hundred women, there’s no way he could be the only poorly-trained skater here who needs extra support. It’s an excuse to cover up his feelings, and the model’s heartbeat skips as that realization sinks in, for the president is such an odd person to fall for as he speaks with his actions rather than his words. “I was fine on my own,” he pouts. 

Handsomely, then, the president stands up, entirely unscathed as though he hadn’t just caught the fall of a six-foot person on ice skates. “Would you, now?” The president responds in a flippant tone, slightly humored and lilting, as though he finds it _funny_. “Then, I would very much like to see you skate as though you were _fine on your own_ , Miss Huang, if you insist that you are just that.”

Oh. Zitao has crossed paths with this tone of voice before - he’s _playing_ with him, testing him and likely looking to exploit him. Fine, then - Zitao will entertain his brazen little ego. 

He tries to play off the little bit of a struggle it is to stand up when on ice instead of trusty, carpeted flooring. After only a moment of trying, he manages to stand albeit wobbling just a bit, yet he sets his jaw and sends his boss a determined look. He can do this on his own - he didn’t get his legs yesterday.

He kicks off carefully and manages to glide several feet, his posture humorously stiff as he stares down at his tracks. Okay, okay, he’s got this, see? He knew he would be fine. 

Still, his expression tenses slightly as he hears the shadow of a snicker behind him, something like an exhalation of breath crossed with a rough little snort, and he glances over his shoulder in appellation as he realizes that his boss is laughing at him. 

“What are you laughing at?” He retorts in a snap, although there is no malice in his voice, and he watches as the man settles his hands behind his back in an innocent retreat. And - no, he couldn’t possibly be right, he must be dreaming - is that a _smirk_ that he sees? No, that’s impossible - the president hasn’t smiled in ten years. “It’s not as easy as it seems, you know! If you think you’re all that, then let’s see how _you_ skate. I’ll laugh when you fall down, too.”

He gets an expression of impressionism in return, the man’s eyebrows having raised in a challenged twitch, and Zitao realizes that they’ve essentially made a telepathic bet. Then, the man lowers his hands from the divot of his back and skates effortlessly over to him and turns, his skates hissing against the ice as he halts himself on the other side of the model, and Zitao has to turn his head around to look at him in all of his smug glory. “Show-off,” Zitao mocks him, crossing his arms over his front. “Anyone can do that.”

The man doesn’t respond, and Zitao pouts his lips to fill in space, feigning himself an innocent, stubborn air. He half-expects the president to break character and to chastise him for acting childishly, scolding him for not acting his age, yet he also half-expects the president to drag him close and whisper in his ear to knock it off, two strikingly different sides of the same coin of which Zitao can never predict the outcome.

What he gets, despite all of his inhibitions, is a flippant little shrug as the man swiftly skates away from him with his hands tucked comfortably by his sides. He just _left_ him after Zitao had challenged him - what kind of a duel was that? 

Cheated and left unsatisfied, Zitao’s mouth drops open slightly as he watches in surprise as the man just leaves him there, stood on his skates as if nothing had even happened. Where is he supposed to get his self-validation and bragging rights, now?

From behind him, he feels a gentle, almost nervous tapping on his shoulder and he jolts a little as he glances behind himself. Minseo is stood behind him, her hand outstretched as she retracts it from his shoulder, and quickly covers her mouth with her pretty, manicured fingers. “Yingtao,” she crows, voice surprised and soft. “Are you… are you dating the president? Like, for _real_ now?”

Equally as stunned as she, for he has no Godforsaken idea what had just transpired between him and the president, Zitao can only shake his head as he looks back to where the man had left him. What _are_ they, now, exactly?

Although nervous for their outcome as a couple and unsure if this territory is safe enough to walk on, Zitao can only hope that the answer to that question is _professionalist acquaintances._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
As he could only have expected for working under such a connoisseur, the restaurant is far nicer than Zitao would have thought, and upon inspection, had been entirely booked out for their clientele only, and although not having been told to bring an extra - and far prettier - change of clothes, Zitao feels very underdressed once more. 

The president signs them in at the hostess’ podium and she grants them full permission to be seated anywhere they please, a privilege given with having booked out an entire venue. As a person used to sitting in booths with no more than three people at any given time other than himself, Zitao has no idea where, exactly, to sit. Upon walking in, he had stood next to Dasom and had unintentionally eavesdropped on a lot of her commonplace chatter, mostly nonsense about fashion and skincare with some interesting tidbits woven in regarding company rumors - none of which, thankfully, involved him. 

After entering, however, Dasom had continued on with her friends and the group had snagged a table in the middle of the dining room, twelve-seated and taken up entirely by the Recreation girls. Glancing around, he notices that Minseo has designated a table with Baekhee and another girl Zitao has not yet met, with the rest of the table entirely empty and likely up for grabs, and Zitao decides that would be a safe place to sit, off to the side by the wall and with his friends.

“Yingtao,” he hears, then, and he glances over as he’s fiddling his thumbs to see who is speaking to him. It’s Jessica, linked arms with Amber while her other hand holds her cell phone, and shock runs through him as he watches her motion to come toward her with the hand which holds her phone. Why would she, of all people in this firm, be trying to act friendly with him? “Come sit with us,” she coaxes, and Zitao’s eyebrows give a distrusting little twitch. 

As though confirmation to her bullshit, Amber gives him a pointed, disheartened look as though tired of her shit, and Zitao realizes that it must be a trap. “No, thank you,” he shakes his head, politely declining her offer. As he refuses, the encouraging little grin slowly melts off as though someone had poured warm water over her, and she responds to him with a simple scowl and a brief lift of her eyebrows, as though to say _suit yourself._

Zitao, not even slightly resemblant to the most idiotic person alive, was not born yesterday. 

He decides to brush it off as he heads over to Minseo’s table and asks her if he is allowed to join them, to which she tells him of course he is, he would always be welcome, and the sentiment makes him smile. “Guys, this is my friend Yingtao,” she introduces him, and Zitao simply humors her hospitality for they all already know him, save for the one girl on the end of the table. “Yingtao, you know the Rec girls.”

“We haven’t met before,” Zitao points out gently as he motions to the girl on the end, and with a kind smile, she stands from her seat, gives him an acknowledging head nod, and extends a hand to shake. “Park Sooyeon,” she says. “I just joined the company about a month ago.”

Impressed, his eyes widen a little bit. So that’s why he’s never seen her before. “You’ll love it here,” he tells her sweetly, humble and smiling. “Just - you know, avoid the higher-ranked Marketing girls. They’re, uh… pretty catty. Take it from me - I know firsthand what they’re like.”

“Oh?” She comments softly, her eyes big and bright and her lips plush and rouged. “You know them?”

“Yingtao is in Marketing,” Minseo explains to her. “In fact, Yingtao is the only one in the entire company right now who started off in Marketing from her very first day, and because of that, there are rumors floating around - ”

“ _Minseo_ ,” he hisses, balling his hands upon the tablecloth as a waitress passes them by and drops off a stack of sleek, black-leathered menus. “Don’t tell her. Not everybody needs to know this, you know.”

“Shh,” his friend pouts, “shut up, you, it’s fine. You see, there are rumors going around that Yingtao and President Wu… are in a relationship.”

Zitao knows that nobody else at the table is surprised, for they have all been here long enough to have become aware of the president’s bias toward him as well as his long-lasting history of intimacy issues after the death of his late wife. Sooyeon, as a brand-new model, likely knows of neither story. “We aren’t,” he clarifies for her, and her lips purse a little bit. “I don’t know who started that rumor, _Minseo_ ,” he stresses, tensing his words toward his friend, “but there is nothing between us, I promise.”

“Oh,” Sooyeon mutters quietly. “Are rumors like this common, then? Like, do they happen often?”

At that, the table falls quiet, for they know that relationship rumors when in regards to the president are extremely far and few between and that it is much more common to hear of the president engaging in intercourse with a model than it is to hear that the president has begun to date one. “Kind of,” he shrugs, turning his eyes away as he looks over the beverage list on the inside slot of his chic menu. “He, uh… he gets with models a lot. Like, you know… sexually.”

The girl’s eyes widen, then, as the dining room chatter begins to rise as more models pour into the room and hug their acquaintances, conversing happily as they greet each other and find their cooperating seats. Zitao watches them in only shadowed curiosity and glances over to see that one table at the far front of the dining area had been set aside; where each table for their consumption had been seated for twelve, there is one single table there which has been seated for only six, and Zitao’s brow furrows as he wonders why that may be. 

It dawns on him as he stares, however, and as he watches Amber and Jessica approach the table that the table must have been reserved for the president’s immediate circle, and unfortunately, this causes jealousy to run through him as he watches Jessica seat herself elegantly at the table, rather than him.

Wait - is he actually _sad_ to not be publicly acknowledged as the president’s crush? He has begun to confuse himself, for which one is more important - to be gluttonous and satisfy himself by coming out about it, or to remain secretive to save both of them the embarrassment of the inevitable reveal of Zitao’s gender? His morals have become so tangled and misshapen. 

“Yingtao?” He hears, and he glances back as he realizes that he has zoned out of whatever conversation he had been included in. The voice had come from Baekhee, surprisingly, while the girls stare at him as though they had been speaking to him, and Zitao feels guilty for having not paid attention. “Did you hear what I said?” She asks, her freckles warm beneath the homely lighting, and Zitao freezes up as he tries to decide how to respond. Is _no, I’m sorry_ more or less disrespectful than _yes, but please repeat yourself_?

“Sorry, um,” he stutters, lifting a hand to rub his eyes. Why is he zoning out so much, lately? “What did you say? I got distracted, I’m sorry.” 

Sighing, Baekhee shakes her head as she lets out a humored little laugh, giggled and soft and indicative that Zitao is not in any kind of trouble, and as the waitress introduces herself and asks them for what they would like to drink, the girl drops the subject of whatever she had been trying to say to him, questionable or not. 

“So,” Minseo says as the waitress thanks them for their drink orders and moves out of sight to retrieve the beverages, “Yingtao - we heard about your collaboration project! Are you excited? Oh, you’ll do so well, I know you will!”

Quietly, awkwardly, he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as he nods, feeling very much like the center of attention of all of these girls as he surreptitiously glances at the president from out of the corner of his vision, chatting away with the two Modeling girls and his vice and treasurer. He wonders what it would be like to be part of an important circle of people for once, to be considered important himself for once - is it nice, gluttonous, and rapturous? Is it indulgent and decadent as you can do practically anything you please with your money? Zitao wishes he didn’t have to give each and every cent he has to his name away and that neither he nor his mother had to suffer any longer. 

He decides, quietly, that this path is for the absolute best and that it will only prove to help grow his character by the end of it all. Until then, he should remain in the safety of his impassive position and not make any drastic moves. 

“Yeah,” he nods, pressing his lips together in a forced smile. “I’m really excited. Anyway - what are you all ordering?”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Karaoke proves to be absolutely not the kind of scene he prefers to frequent. Of course, he has known of his own activity preferences for several years, now, but despite simply attending in order to be a good friend and to keep Minseo out of trouble as she grows tipsier and tipsier and begins to giggle and fall all over Sooyeon’s lap, who is additionally no help in her own inebriated state, Zitao _really_ just prefers to not be at karaoke bars at all.

He had lasted roughly half an hour, sipping at a martini as he watched Minseo express herself humorously in a campy performance of a classic ballad, yet being under the influence, it was rather comedic to watch and had most of the Recreation girls laughing along. Zitao, however, had developed a headache by the time Sojin had joined her on stage and begun practically screaming the words. To inebriated folk, it would be funny and comedic, but for Zitao who was mostly sober and still very much self-aware, it made him want to shove knives into the sides of his head. 

Politely, he excuses himself from his slightly-sober friends and says, “I’m gonna go stand outside and get some fresh air,” and Amber, being the most responsible drinker of them all, nods and waves him off as he heads toward the front doors of the bar. 

It’s cold out tonight, comfortable to him considering he had dressed warmly in order to go skating and considering his leggings are likely thicker than his patience with loud, drunk women. Sighing, he designates himself a spot on the front porch of the bar, leans his arms on the wooden railing, and flutters his eyes closed as the cool breeze rushes through his hair and licks along his neck. 

Despite how wonderfully he’s managed to do at work and how many miracles he’s crossed to keep himself wrapped comfortably in his blanket of safety, it’s proven to be absolutely exhausting to keep up this charade, and he can only wonder how long he could physically continue it. If he hadn’t needed to be frightened each and every day that the president would make one move too far and would expose Zitao for who he truly is, then perhaps his stress would be considerably minimalized. Until then, however, Zitao cannot get his nerves to calm. 

And that brings him back to the man in question - the president, despite being a rather prickly one and a very difficult one to love, has proven to have become a commonplace member of character change. He’s begun to soften, against all odds, and his rough, rigid exterior has begun to crack and his soft heart has begun to leak through little by little. However sweet it may be a novelty to hold, however, it proves to he wrapping its hand tighter and tighter around Zitao’s lovelorn heart with each trickle of empathy. Soon, Zitao isn’t sure he’s going to be able to resist him at all. 

Behind himself, then, he hears the click of a door and looks up from where he’d been massaging the tension in his forehead. Quietly, the president had slinked out onto the front porch in all of his handsome glory, and Zitao’s heart lurches as he realizes that he’s being followed. All day, all week, all _month_ , the man has been quietly and secretly following him - and for what? Just to kiss him and to ruin the brick wall that Zitao has carefully built up to protect himself? Quietly, Zitao sighs and straightens his posture just a smidge as the man asks him, “Is everything alright, Yingtao?”

He cannot help but shake his head in disbelief, because this is where his road ends with fighting this losing battle. There’s absolutely no reason why this professional, intimidating man would be gazing at him with softened eyes and a warm expression. “My head is killing me,” he admits quietly, pointedly, his temper flared due to the migraine figuratively splitting his skull right in half. Sighing, he presses his fingers harshly to his temples again. “I’m fine. I’ll live.”

Nevertheless, the man approaches him with deep footsteps, shoes thudding softly on the wood as the rich musk of his cologne washes over the model, and before Zitao knows it, the man is prostrate beside him with a foot’s worth of space between them, his own arms crossed on the railing as he stares up at the sky and the glittering stars within it. “Should you decide that you want any, I do have painkillers in the glove compartment in my car.”

Oh goodness, how he would _crave_ a painkiller, right now. Still - Zitao is not sure how to ask for such a thing. “You,” he mutters, his voice soft as he peeks at his boss from out of the corner of his eye, and as he does so, the man’s eyes slide from the dimmed glow of the nighttime sky to his face once more. “Would you really get something like that for me?”

Passively, the man shrugs. “You are my contracted employee,” he states. “I am responsible for your immediate healthcare needs.”

Oh. Zitao isn’t sure why he hadn’t expected the man to be so… _hospitable._ “Could you?” He asks in a small voice, as though afraid of asking. Sure, it’s only asking for drugstore medication, but to Zitao, it feels like a proposal, as he’s never necessarily asked the president to take care of him before. “It’s probably not going to go away for a while, so…”

Still, the man is kind by his side, his weight rustling as he lowers his arms from the railing and says, “Absolutely.” 

The man leaves him as he strides out into the parking lot, broad and tall among the night’s dark, and when he returns from his car, he hands Zitao a capped bottle of acetaminophen and an untouched bottle of water for him to down it with. Had he really gone out of his way to this extent just to take care of Zitao’s headache? The sentiment settles warmly in the model’s chest as he thanks him kindly and procures himself two pills to take. “Let’s hope these things work fast,” he mutters in disdain, grimacing as he swallows them down with a rush of lukewarm water. 

Silently, the president regains his position upon the railing, staring up at the starlight as Zitao’s head burns on all sides from the pain. Originally, he had come out here to be alone so he no longer had to listen to alcohol-induced screaming over a wired microphone, but with the president lingering by his side, Zitao no longer has any idea how to escape and earn himself privacy. Where else is he supposed to go? If he were to try to move further outside, the president would likely follow him, and if he were to go back inside, he would end up wanting to tear each and every hair out of his head by the end of the night. The only other option he can think of would be to leave early and head home, but he is directly responsible for Minseo tonight, and he cannot leave her here inebriated and certainly doesn’t have the heart to tell her that her fun is over and that she needs to go home at only ten-thirty at night, especially when they don’t have to be at work tomorrow and she’s very likely to sprout a hangover in the morning. 

Stuck, Zitao pouts and awkwardly tries to avoid all eye contact as best as he can.

“I have something that I would like to say to you,” the president speaks softly beside him, quietly in the silence of the night, and Zitao’s heart lurches. There has not yet been an instance, since learning of the president’s feelings for him, where any of their private conversations have been professional and well-composed. Afraid that he knows where this conversation is surely heading, Zitao honestly does not want to hear what it is that he has to say. “If you would let me, that is.”

As he debates it, he becomes familiar with an unfamiliar apprehension in his chest, one that feels like discovering a new love at fourteen years old and having that smitten, yearning pull within him to bring him closer to his desires. Despite not wanting things to escalate to a place where he knows they will, he can’t help but want them to escalate, at the exact same time, entirely paradoxical and oxymoronic. “What is it?” He asks gently in return, doing his best to stare straight ahead at the ground below, watching the pebbled cobblestone as though it had begun to change colors. 

He knows what must be coming, for what else would the president want to say to him in private, like this? “I would like to confess something to you,” is what the man tells him, and when Zitao looks up, the man hasn’t yet glanced away from the sky. “You may know that you have proven to be one of the hardest workers that I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and that you have… certainly _shaped_ this company into what it is today.”

Quietly, Zitao blows out a calm, nondescript breath. That’s one way to put it. 

“And for helping my business thrive the way it is now,” the man continues, his tone warm and humble, “I have to thank you, Yingtao.”

Warmth blooms within him, prideful and tender, and Zitao glances over to meet his eyes, equally as soft and approachable as his tone. Despite his rigid appearance and his unwavering intimidation, he is truly seeing the president for who he is right now, his soul bared out on his sleeve as he, for once, treats him like a friend would. “You’re welcome,” Zitao offers kindly, pressing his lips together in an awkward little grin, as though it were painful. “Thank you for hiring me and giving me this opportunity.” 

Then, something happens that stops Zitao’s heart right on the spot as the warm glow of the front porch lights washes over them. The president begins to _smile._

Not at all emotional or full of excitement, and certainly not humored or happy, but certainly a content little crook of the corners of his lips upward into a lopsided turn, an actual _grin_ on those pretty, peachy lips that Zitao has been avoiding for so long, and it steals the breath right from his lungs. If he had blinked, he certainly would have missed it. 

Tender-heartedly, the man looks away in the warm, dim glow of the lights and turns his eyes back to the bright, icy moon and the bluish haze which it casts. “You have done very well here,” he says smoothly. “You have brought life back into the firm, Yingtao - you have brought color, passion, driven determination, and everything which this brand had been missing. You, should you believe me or not, are a very special woman, indeed.”

His cheeks have pinked from all of the complimenting, buttered-up and emboldened by supportive words, but still, Zitao has to put some kind of a stop to this before it tips them both over the edge. “Thank you very much, sir,” he accepts the appraisal kindly, “but I do have to ask that you, um… that you stop chasing after me like this.”

At this statement, the president falls silent. “Stop?” He asks quietly. “I thought you had told me that you were not uncomfortable the first time…” 

Unfortunately, the hurt has begun to bleed its ugly self into his words, thinning out his tone and dropping his compassion from it, which was not at all Zitao’s intention. In fact, with such a romantically traumatized man, Zitao had intended to let him off very easily so as to not hurt him and to not lead him on only to break his heart. “I wasn’t,” he sighs, shying his eyes away in embarrassment, “but I don’t want to continue this and… end up hurting you.”

“What do you mean?” The president asks in muffled confusion. “I thought… that you had been attracted to me, as well… was I incorrect?”

Oh no. Now Zitao is walking along a very thin tightrope with only two options - does he turn back, telling the truth and admitting that yes, of course he also has attraction for him but simply does not want a relationship, or does he follow through into the chasm of danger and lie, reiterating that he was not, in fact, attracted to him, and make the president believe that he had been invading his unconsented personal space this whole time? Sadly, Zitao cannot do that to him. “No, I…” he starts, shifting around to face him, which proves to be a mistake. The man looks absolutely dejected, his eyebrows knitted as though in pain and his irises dull as though he may cry. “I _am_ ,” he promises swiftly, “I just…” 

“You just?” The president repeats quietly, stepping ever-so-slightly closer. “You just what?”

He is becoming frustrated with himself, for he is torn between right and wrong, between wanting to indulge and wanting to stay safely hidden. “I don’t know,” he stresses with an exasperated sigh, for he doesn’t. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wu, but I can’t do this.”

He turns to step away, wanting to be alone before he hurts someone with his foolishness - until a hand latches onto his wrist to stop him. “Wait,” the man says flatly, his brow tensed in concentration. Softened, Zitao’s teeth sink into his bottom lip in nervousness. “What do you mean you cannot do this? I mean, I could have sworn that you felt the same, Yingtao - you did know that I liked you, correct?”

No, he can’t do this. He’s not strong enough for this. 

When he glances back at him as he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, the president falters as he sees that there are tears in the model’s eyes, cloudy and glossy. “I just can’t tell you,” he admits in a whispered tone. “I just… I can’t. I can’t do this because you’ll get hurt, and you’ll hate me.”

Nevertheless, the man shakes his head as he pulls Zitao just a smidgen closer as he tries, once more, to leave. His grip on the model’s frail wrist tightens. “Please tell me what you mean,” he asks - practically _begs_ \- and Zitao’s composure threatens to crack. “I want to try this. I… I want to try again. What do I have to do?”

No, that was absolutely the last straw, for the one and only thing that would completely tear him down would have to be the president’s weak side bearing itself. He’s worked so hard to keep his identity a secret, so why does it feel so unfair to lie right to the man’s face like this? It must have taken a lot of self-persuasion, on the president’s part, for him to decide to try to date someone again, so who is Zitao to take that away from him? “I just can’t,” he pleads quietly, “and I can’t tell you why.”

With a long beat of silence, the president falls quiet, mulling the situation over to himself. Then, as Zitao begins to think that the man is going to let him go, he suddenly turns him and places both hands on the model’s arms as he forces Zitao to face him. “Yingtao,” he whispers. “I need you to tell me what it is that I need to do. I - I just _like_ you, and I just want to try this, so why are you unable to, as well? What do I need to do for you?”

“Please let me go,” Zitao asks, his heart trembling. He won’t cry here - he absolutely cannot.

“No,” the president shakes his head, his tone suddenly sharp. “Not until you tell me what is wrong. I thought - I thought you felt for me, and I… you got me to feel for you, as well, so why? Why does this have to be complicated? Why can’t you just let me have you? After _everything_ that it has taken me to…”

It’s heartbreaking the way the man’s bitter tone breaks toward the end, his professional countenance cracking and his words combining. His gaze has become rigid, fiery, and alight with emotion as he struggles to make sense of the situation, and above everything, Zitao hates how much despair he sees in those eyes. As a tear flits down his cheek, Zitao begins to silently cry as he says, “I can’t tell you.”

This is what hurts the most is now, the man’s heart is completely at Zitao’s disposal, beating in the model’s open hands for his own pleasure to toy with and ruin as he pleases. This is a man who struggles to love, who has no idea how to love, and yet is doing it and is trying, and Zitao has to be the bearer of bad news and come raining down on his parade. Knowing that he has to let the man down for their own combined safety and protection, Zitao is extremely aware that it the president will likely never fall for another woman again, for if he hadn’t in ten years until Zitao came along, then he likely wouldn’t have, at all.

As though struggling to keep calm, the man’s lips press together as he fights to keep hold of himself, and he lets out a rugged, trembling sigh as he lets go of Zitao’s arms. “Alright,” he mutters emotionlessly, absolutely drained as though being turned down had taken _everything_ out of him. “As you wish.”

Blinking, Zitao’s heartbeat stops. That’s… that’s it? He’s quitting, just like that? Suddenly, Zitao entirely regrets his decision, which only proves to confuse him more. 

He expects the man to return to the bar and to his employees to wrap up the night, or to down another drink to swallow his feelings and likely drink enough to end up stumbling into his living room and collapsing on the couch as the room spins. He expects to be fired, actually, to be glared at and told not to return to work on Monday, yet - all he gets, despite all of his expectations, is silence.

Complete, chilling silence - with eyes cast to the ground and a permanent frown on his shadowed face as he hides his shame.

“I’m um,” Zitao pipes up gently, quietly, trying his best to slice through the awkwardness which hangs thick in the balance between them, simmering and buzzing among the air as though evening cicadas. “I’m… gonna go back inside and take Minseo home. She’s uh, pretty drunk, so… yeah.”

He doesn’t receive a response, but then again, he doesn’t necessarily expect to receive one, either, and rather, the man glances away from him even further. The lack of response actually hurts much more than a crestfallen one, for Zitao is simply being ignored, now, and is being treated as though he doesn’t exist. Somehow, the thought really fucking stings to know that he likely no longer matters. 

Bravely, he gives the man a curt bow of the head and turns away, lifting a hand to his mouth to stifle any sobs that may come out. Why does this have to hurt so much?

Then - Zitao’s heart _lurches_ in his chest, risen back to life as a hand is grabbing him briskly, roughly, and spinning him around before he even knows it. He expects to be hit, to be shouted at, to be scolded or anything of the sort, yet… what he gets, God _save_ his poor little heart, is the rough, insistent press of lips on his own.

What?

He blinks, unable to take into account the fact that the president is kissing him, practically crushing him to his chest as he keeps a tight hold on his arms and roughly slots his mouth against his, desperate and yearning, and Zitao is not strong enough for this. He struggles against him briefly, for this is not supposed to be happening, not when Zitao is trying his best to keep things together, but… but it’s so nice, and he _wants_ this.

When he realizes that the man is insistent on not releasing him, Zitao weakens and his energy depletes as he gives in completely, mewling softly against the man’s lips as his delicate hands fall upon broad shoulders. 

They part briefly, the president’s eyes completely blown and his lips swollen and glossy as he pants in the several inches of space they share, and Zitao practically shrinks beneath the heat of that gaze. “Don’t run away anymore,” the president tells him lowly, and Zitao gets no time to respond as the man leans back in and connects their lips again, this kiss much gentler than the first and much less hasty.

His pulse rabbiting as his emotions soar and he finally feels content, Zitao falls victim to sin as he begins to indulge, responding to the president’s kisses with shy little swipes of the tip of his tongue along slightly-chapped lips as a warm, broad palm slides across his back and settles in the lower divot, pressing them flush together. This had all been a trap, had all been carefully - no, rather messily - orchestrated by the company president himself to get Zitao to fall right into his arms like the damsel that he is, and it worked. 

Now, with his emotions in a knot and euphoria swirling around him as they part with a soft, wet sound, the pinkness of a tongue peeking out as he swipes over where one of the man’s canines had scraped him, Zitao’s mind finally clears.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers hastily, feeling very much at fault for potentially ruining the man’s night. “I…” 

Shaking his head, the president gives him a few inches of space as he begins to pull away. “Don’t,” he says, and Zitao can’t remember the last time the man had used so many contractions in one conversation, if ever at all, and it dawns on him that this is a figurative sign that the man’s professional walls have come down. This is Yifan who is looking at him right now with warm eyes, no longer President Wu who has to put on a facade for the good of his company - this is _Yifan_ who had just kissed him out on the front balcony of a karaoke bar beneath the moon and the stars and the warm glow of golden oil-lantern lights. “Don’t be sorry,” Yifan whispers, and Zitao’s nerves tingle as a thumb swipes caringly and delicately over his cheekbone.

Fragile, Zitao begins to cry, and Yifan is there to wipe away his tears as his safety blanket completely shreds to pieces and he falls into his own trap.

“Don’t cry anymore, Yingtao. It’s alright.”

Beneath the nighttime sky, Zitao realizes exactly how it was so easy, and so quick, for Mochou to fall in love with such a man.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

“You’re down to twenty-seven,” Qian mumbles, mainly to herself, as she leans to the side and begins to scribble down his waist measurement into his company log. “By the way, President Wu informed me the other day that when you have your measurements re-taken by me, that we should start you on body shape management. So, we’re going to start you on some waist trainers, okay, Yingtao?”

Awkwardly, Zitao stands still as the measuring tape falls delicately away from his skin where he’s holding his shirt up, exposing his toned, newly-lithe abdomen for her to measure. The statement sticks to his skin; he’s not sure if he’s ever heard of waist trainers before - it feels safer to assume that he hasn’t, and therefore, the newness feels quite frightening. “Will it hurt?” He asks her, wary that this _waist training_ she speaks of will come with promises of beauty along with injury. 

Qian hesitates for a moment, he notices, and he takes mental note of it, for nearly each and every time she has hesitated with speaking to him, it has been symbolic of something that he may or may not be allowed to know. “It depends on the person,” she says. “Early waist training usually does not hurt, but late waist training - more _severe_ waist training, I should say, may cause weight loss due to stomach shrinkage and lack of circulation. So, if President Wu decides that you only need a slight amount of training, then you should be fine.”

Zitao could roll his eyes, really, because there is a man as powerful and wealthy as sin, willingly and _knowingly_ damaging his employees and even so much as putting their lives at risk. Somehow, the difference between the president that Zitao knows and the president that the company knows, feels enormous. “How aware is he that his actions and methods are detrimental to us?” He quips as he shakes his head, rolling his eyes back as he watches Qian reach into a cabinet drawer beside them and pull out what looks like a long, rectangular piece of fabric with bones every several inches. Is that what a trainer looks like? “Someone should tell him that this is dangerous for our _precious little Yingtao_ to do.” 

“Don’t push it, missy,” Qian laughs as she checks the size on the trainer, glancing from its tag to Zitao’s measurement log and back. “Alright, so we’ll start you on a medium. This should bring you down to about… twenty-six inches and then we can move down to a small and continue training.”

He knows he should riot and outright refuse the training, for having a twenty-six-inch waist for a six-foot man is absolutely absurd and plenty unhealthy, and Zitao doesn’t want to even begin to imagine what it may do to his insides. “Alright,” he settles with quietly, knowing that this is just part of the job and that it’s all for a good cause. “Whatever works, I guess.”

Happy with the permission, Qian reaches forward to wrap the trainer around his abdomen. It fits weirdly like a corset - not that Zitao knows how a corset, fits, or anything, for it’s not like he had a shoot two months ago in a corset and a tulle skirt, or anything - but is much shorter in terms of coverage, simply wrapping around him like a back brace rather than extending to his bosom. When Qian does up the clasps in the front, she gives him permission to feel it and to give his two cents on the wear, and when Zitao smooths his hands over it, he notices that the bones do not stand out sharply the way they do in a corset and that it fits rather snugly albeit comfortably against his skin without feeling chunky or heavy. 

“The trainers work like corsets,” Qian tells him as she marks down the date of the beginning of his training in his company log, “just - you know, less harsh because corsets you can tie as tightly as you please. The trainers are limited by size and only alter the body if they have resistance. Once the body no longer resists, you need to size down.”

Oh, so it’s like that. Truth be told, it is a little uncomfortable to breathe, feeling as though his organs and lower ribs are being held in place at all times. “Do I have to keep it on all day?” He asks her, long-nailed fingertips curiously grazing the bones. 

Closing the cabinet drawer, Qian nods. “The only time you may remove it is when showering, sleeping, or modeling. During work and personal hours, you are to keep it on at all times under the president’s orders. If at any time the trainer feels loose or really begins to hurt, I need you to tell me, okay?”

Zitao quietly sighs, lowering the hem of his shirt as he turns away from the mirror. “What about when I do my aerobics for _Grazia_ ’s commercial?” He questions. “Do I have to wear it then, too?”

Although relatively well-prepared for most, if not all, things that this job could throw at him, there seem to consistently be more and more things that prove new and confusing for him, and at the present moment, he’s dealing with roughly three or four of those unpredicted nuances. Zitao likes to think that he’s quite skilled at braving most of what he’s had thrown at him, from learning how to properly conceal his own cock and how to get over the embarrassment of it, to having to learn how to model and look pretty with a broken ankle - yet nothing leaves him quite as worried as the unspoken threat of internal organ damage. He had held very little qualms about fracturing his ankle, for a physical injury will heal visually, but internal injuries may prove worse than they appear, and Zitao doesn’t like not knowing how his body is doing. 

Fortunately enough to give him a little bit of relief, Qian shakes her head, then, and says, “You can leave it off when you dance. It might make it too uncomfortable.” 

Zitao couldn’t agree more, considering the bones feel sharp in a way that might prove painful if he bends or twists a certain way out of the ordinary. Still, it does not yet feel as though it may already be detrimental to his organs, so he supposes he’s fine for now. “This seems stupid,” he mumbles to himself as he strokes the trainer from over the cloth of his shirt, growing accustomed to how it feels beneath clothing. “Like, this seems completely unnecessary considering every woman’s body is different in shape and size.”

“Yeah, well,” the coordinator shakes her head as she lets out a rolling sigh, her shoulders and bosom rising and falling with the weight of the action, “this is what Mr. Wu says works, and what he says always goes. I’m serious, Yingtao - don’t push this. The president doesn’t take lightly to being defied.”

Oh, please, he could roll his eyes. Zitao knows better than anybody that their frightening company president would sooner likely kiss the ground the model walked on than cause him actual harm, especially after what occurred just this past Friday night. He wonders why he has yet to really see the Big Bad Wolf they all call President Wu - has he been sleeping right through the past eight months enough to entirely disregard the man’s abrasive behavior, or has he just not personally experienced it due to their undisclosed bias? 

As one of the president’s most favorited models, though, Zitao can’t help but feel high and mighty and quite invincible, actually, as he glances back at his reflection in the standing mirror and greets the sight of what the president has learned to fall for. “I’m not,” he states softly. “So - what’s for lunch today?”

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Zitao both is and isn’t at all surprised when he rounds the corner of the wing toward the foyer and catches sight of a woman whom had stood at the front desk, lithe and pretty where she spoke to the secretary as though waiting for someone, and had only realized she had been waiting for him when the sound of his shoes against the polished floor causes her to glance to the side and illuminate in a happy expression at the sight of him. Although he’s never met this woman, he can’t help but feel confused as though he were supposed to know her - have they met? Judging by the joy in her expression, he can only assume they must know each other.

She approaches him rather than the other way around, dressed in slim-fitting jeans with flared legs and a ruffled blouse in a pewter shade, and extends an excited hand for him to shake. “Huang Yingtao?” She asks aloud, and Zitao knows his expression is twisting in confusion by the stress it puts on his facial muscles as he returns the gesture. 

“Don’t worry, we haven’t met. Zhou Jieqiong,” she introduces herself as a delicate thumb swipes over his hand as they part, her nails painted an attractive rosewood pink, “I’m one of the lead choreographers from _Grazia_ \- Executive Kim hired me to help instruct you on what to do regarding your collaboration with us, so from now on each and every day, I’m going to be your personal dance partner. Is that alright?”

 His hand hangs delicately in the space between them for only a brief moment before his senses settle back in and his confusion begins to thin out. For some reason, he had expected a male dance teacher and had been anxious about it this whole week; perhaps, he supposes, that may be due to the fact that a man was organizing and leading his collaboration and not a woman. It’s silly, he knows, but the knowledge that Executive Kim took extra care in hand-picking a female teacher for him warms him from the inside. “Yeah,” he nods, forcing a grin to creep across his lips. “Nice to meet you. How long have you been doing this, if that’s okay for me to ask?”

“Close to ten years,” Jieqiong tells him with a courteous nod, her hands folding down by her lap where she stands. “So, I should tell you how this is all going to work. The collaboration does not have a deadline, although we do hope to get it out by the wintertime. You will learn the choreography to perform and I will help you practice it and memorize it in hopes of ingraining it into you like a tattoo. Again, this is not a time-sensitive project - we will do this at your pace and we will take all of the time that we need, especially considering the fact that you have no previous aerobic experience.”

Quietly, he pouts a little bit. “So we’ll be practicing down in the gym?” He asks quietly, but Jieqiong manages to catch it.

“Actually,” she starts with a little smile, “your company president gave me full permission to use one of the studios on the very top floor - he said they’re not like the modeling studios? I’m not really sure.”

To himself, Zitao frowns, for he doesn’t know what those studios up there are like, either. Being not yet a member of the president’s prestigious circle, he hasn’t ever had a chance to find out what those studios are used for, but Zitao’s imagination could easily come up with a myriad of answers to that, and some of them sexual in nature. “Okay,” he says with a nod. “Sounds good.”

She grins happily, then, her dark hair billowing down her shoulders sleekly. “Great,” she comments joyously. “I figure we could have our first practice today whenever you’re free? Let me know when a good time for you is in your daily schedule and I’ll be here!”

She’s extraordinarily nice, he notes to himself silently, and not in a deceptive way, either. Still, meeting new people and having to interact with them for elongated periods of time still brings him anxiety, for the prevalent fear that he will be caught never successfully ceases. “I should be free around four today,” he tells her because his afternoon shoots every day never really tend to stray far past four o'clock in the afternoon, and if they do, the occurrence is rare. “And - probably every day. Is that okay?”

“I can do that,” Jieqiong vows happily. “I’ll see you later today at four, okay, Yingtao? Studio two, top floor.”

 _Studio two, top floor._ Zitao feels like sweating out of the sheer newness of the unknown studio. Due to it being on the top floor, he is additionally worried that the president may sneak in and make another move on him, and although very content with how Friday transpired, this is the last place where he would need the president to grow passionate. “I’ll see you then, Jieqiong-jie,” he forces a little smile and gives her a little wave, and the dancer bows courteously before she adjusts her shoulder bag and heads toward the elevators, likely to set up their studio for practicing. 

She does seem trustworthy enough for Zitao to whittle away his walls around her and show himself, to exercise in front of her and not expect judgment, for she has likely seen muscular and toned women before if she is a trained choreographer. 

He can only hope in the normalcy of the foyer, throat working in a swallow, that this project won’t be too embarrassing for him to execute. Besides, what more could they possibly throw at him that he hasn’t already dealt with and had to overcome on his own? Zitao isn’t even sure if his long-standing masculinity still exists after eight months in this place, for he remembers very well how he used to be the man who could never even stand the thought of wearing high heels and now does it as willingly as he would with anything that was second nature to him. Now, after eight months, he no longer feels afraid to be seen in them and no longer feels masculine, but at the same time, no longer feels non-masculine, either, and he’s not necessarily bothered by that. After eight months, Zitao no longer finds himself worrying about a little bit of body hair regrowth or the somewhat obvious curvature of his muscles which are uncommon for females.

After eight months, Zitao has learned how to be a masculine woman and an additionally feminine man, and he’s starting to quite like it, actually. It gives him a rush that he would mostly associate with the excitement and thrill of being in a costume. Somehow, Zitao has begun to _enjoy_ this lifestyle.

That is when it doesn’t necessarily involve the confusing world of romantic intimacy and his inexperience in it, as well as the danger which comes with dabbling in such an area. Now that he has undeniable proof that he’s dug his own grave, Zitao isn’t so sure what he should do anymore, whether that be to continue the charade or cut it off and run away. That being said, he suddenly begins to feel nervous, as though he were naked.

Though, perhaps it is because he’s quite tired lately and is still a little bit hungry after his unfulfilling lunch due to his instilled diet. Yeah, maybe he’s just peckish and maybe that’s why it’s making his insides feel strained. Maybe he should get a drink.

 

  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Although never having been a ballerina in his life, Zitao takes quite well to ballet. 

Aerobic dance, as he finds out in Jieqiong’s definition, is not anything like those old jazzercise infomercials his mother used to watch when he was in elementary school, wherein Zitao would find her rhythmically exercising to the beat of an on-screen woman’s guidance. Rather, Zitao finds out that it is more so ballet mixed with delicate, pretty handsprings and bends, all of which he is already somewhat accustomed to due to his history of martial arts and the occasional tumbling class.

“Keep your heels off the ground,” she comments gently, comfortingly, and leans over to help him lift his weight onto his toes by guiding his hands. “With any form of dance, you want to keep most of your stress on your toes rather than the heels, for you will have better control and center stability that way. When you keep your stress on your toes, you can control your movements more. For example, at the transition from your jeté to your tour en l’air, you’re flattening your heels against the ground too much, so it’s causing you to stutter. See, you want to keep your movements light and airy so the focus can be on the ribbon rather than your footwork.”

Exhaling deeply, he lays his hands along the dips in the curvature of his waist as he catches his breath, skin glistening beneath the lights of the dance studio. It’s rather large and as roomy as he could possibly ask for, permitting him plenty of space to twirl about without running into anything. “Was I alright otherwise?” He asks shyly. “Like, other than that?”

He had expected Jieqiong to be quite assertive in her teaching and had expected her to be all-knowing and highly-expectant of him, but rather she is patient and flippant, actually, casual in a way that is approachable and comfortably familiar in her chic sweatsuit. Zitao can’t help but feel humored by the fact that their gender roles have basically switched, as Zitao is delicate and feminine in his pastel leotard whereas she is capably gender-neutral with her hair tied back and a brimmed cap on her head. Somehow, he would have expected her to dress similarly to him in something girly and attractive, but he supposes that truly talented artists do not need looks to prove their worth. 

Which, as she scans him up and down with a pleasantly unguarded look, makes him feel just a little bit better about being intently stared at. “Actually, yes,” she points out in a lilted tone, as though she hadn’t fully expected him to pull off the routine. “Of course, you are a little step-heavy, but once you learn to rely on your toes only, it’ll fix that really quick. My only advice otherwise would be to curl your hands when you are holding the ribbon and extend your arms a little bit more, that way it doesn’t make contact with your body and it also doesn’t accidentally tangle, you know?”

Glancing down at the ribbon handle in his hand, Zitao nods. “Should I go again?”

“If you want to, sure,” Jieqiong tells him kindly, “but we _have_ been at it for forty minutes now. Are you sure you don’t want to break for now and grab something to drink? We can rehydrate and pick back up in fifteen.”

Zitao couldn’t agree more, especially considering how parched he’s become and how sweaty he feels. “Okay,” he agrees, and Jieqiong’s face alights in a smile. “I’ll, uh, probably stay here, though. Maybe work on my toe-stressing.”

“No, Yingtao, you can take a break,” she laughs. “I mean it, it’s okay. Here, how about this - I’ll head over to the cafeteria and get us some electrolyte drinks, and you can relax off to the sidelines and catch your breath, yeah?”

“Fine,” he sighs, turning on his heel and swiftly seating himself on the glossed wooden floor of the studio, reserving his fifteen-minute seat to wait for her return from the cafeteria. “But if my toe-stressing isn’t perfect by the time my deadline arrives, it’s on you,” he jokes, and the choreographer rolls her eyes as she laughs at him. “And by the way, grape is the worst flavor.”

“I take that as, if I get you grape, you’re quitting the project,” Jieqiong says as her eyebrows stress in humor. “Alright, I’ll be back. Don’t run anywhere too far, and don’t die, either.”

Zitao knows the walk to this wing very well. Although never having thoroughly explored it outside of heading to and leaving the president’s quarters, Zitao has made the journey many a time enough to know it like the back of his hand. Just simply taking the elevator down to the cafeteria and back would take nearly four whole minutes, and that doesn’t account for the time it takes Jieqiong to wind through the commissary and retrieve their drinks. So, taking into account the daily late-lunchtime traffic that normally slows him down by several minutes when having his lunch, Zitao estimates that she will be gone a total of six-and-a-half minutes. 

Given those thickened minutes, Zitao smirks to himself as he goes against her word and reaches for his ribbon stick once more. After all, this is for his mother, and Jieqiong cannot, within their legally-binding contract outlining the collaboration agreements, stop him from improving his performances. 

In the quiet of the empty studio, he takes a deep breath where he stands and arches his feet, preparing the ribbon in his hand. _Right, so it’s just stepping with your toes, Zitao. You’ve done it before. Step after step._

Carefully, he begins to tiptoe to the beat of the imaginary music, having kept the studio in silence to not alert Jieqiong of what it was that he was doing. Nevertheless, he can still remember the airy, fluttering melody of the wordless ballad that he was given. The ribbon flows artfully from its handle as though an extension of his own energy, sleek pink satin that cascades around his body as he spins and bends, completing his jeté which melts into a graceful back-handspring, his muscles flexing as his world spins. 

When he comes back up in order to spring into his tour en l’air, however, a sharp pain radiates across the side of his head, rippling like a crack of thunder which shatters his concentration and causes him to wince as the ribbon stick clatters to the ground. Is he extremely dehydrated? Zitao is not one to normally get headaches. He tries to think about when the last drink he had was, which was likely this morning despite Jieqiong fetching him an electrolyte drink right now. Then again, when was the last time he really ate, either? Sure, he had an energy bar at lunch, but he _had_ skipped breakfast and he doesn’t exactly remember if he’d eaten a full dinner last night, either. Ever since being put on the stricter diet and the regimen of trainers, Zitao doesn’t remember feeling hungry much at all.

To himself, he sighs as he blinks away vertigo and picks up his ribbon stick once more. He’s probably fine, but he should also probably take it a little bit easy until he gets some electrolytes into him. If anything, that will help more than regular water will. 

Inhaling through the nose, he decides to start again, and his wrist swivels to twirl the ribbon as his eyes flutter closed, imprinting the movements into his muscular memory. 

First comes the sequential spins, each abruptly thrust off of his toes as he maneuvers the ribbon attractively around his upper body, sweeping the handle behind himself and bending his spine back. _Concentrate, Zitao_ , he thinks to himself. _Keep the stress of your weight on your toes, and don’t mess up the jeté_.

He wonders what people would say if they saw him like this - devoted, undeterred, and femininely lithe in a pastel leotard and tights as his tied-back hair caresses his shoulders where it cascades down. He wonders what Luhan would say - despite it being nonjudgmental as Luhan likely has one of the most open minds Zitao has ever known of, he can’t help but wonder if his best friend would laugh and smile and appreciate the sight, or would joke about it and tease him by saying the truss of his dick was visible in the folds of the lycra blend. He wonders what Minseo would say, or even Jessica, two women of polar opposites both evil and benign. 

Then he gets a bizarre little thought as the ribbon flutters audibly around him - what if, in some weird alternate way, his friends from work were only being nice to him because of his prestige? What if they were only befriending him in order to reap the benefits that came with associating him, including growing closer to the president and spending more time in the Marketing wing?

Falling back into a handspring, he abruptly shoves the thought away. No, they wouldn’t do that. Minseo, of all people, wouldn’t do that to him. Letting out a broken, shaky little breath, he decides that he’s far too anxious to actually have fake friendships.

The imaginary music begins to reach its instrumental climax in the crevices of his mind, the sweet hum of the violins thrumming alongside the tinkling of the harp, warm and thick as he lands on his toes and glides across the waxy floor, flexible and experienced from over a month’s worth of training. With ample grace and his unisex elegance, he sticks the landing as he dramatically arches his back and drapes the ribbon over himself as the imaginary song reaches its close, and he breathes out worn-out breaths with a heaving bosom as he lifts a hand to his sweaty face to brush his hair away.

Clap, clap, clap.

Startled, Zitao nearly jumps out of his skin as the noise resonates throughout the spacious studio, loud against the vast acoustics of the uninsulated room, the ribbon stick falling from his hands and clattering noisily onto the wood. “Mr. Wu,” he says out loud, jittery hands guarding his upper breast as he takes in the sight of his boss, handsomely prostrate against the wooden door in a relaxed position, his hands meeting in gracious claps as he soaks up the sight of Zitao’s work with warm eyes and slicked-back hair. “How - how long have you been standing there?”

Smoothly, the man steps forward from his spot against the door and strides casually across the studio, diminishing the space between them with long black slacks and a buttoned blouse in minted silk, strikingly soft and at the same time sensual as Zitao has never really seen the man in colors other than darks and primary whites. “Not very long,” the president swiftly tells him. “I came in after your attitude derrière.”

Although not experienced enough to know how to choreograph markers into songs, Zitao remembers exactly where the attitude had been in the choreography - it had been merely several seconds into the bridge of the song, near the end just after the halfway mark, where he had reached back as his leg swung up behind him and had wound the ribbon around the flat of his slipper with a bawdy little flick of the wrist.. The president had watched him, surreptitiously and intriguingly, for a _whole_ minute. “Oh,” he mutters, eyes shifting about as he reaches down to pick up the ribbon stick from the floor. “Teacher Jieqiong was getting me a drink, you see - and I just, uh… wanted to practice some more while she was gone.”

“I see that,” Yifan presents to him the shadow of a smirk when he briefly swipes his hands together as an elegant little mannerism. “Has anyone ever told you that you look absolutely _ethereal_ when you dance?”

Zitao hasn’t, as a matter of fact, had anyone tell him that in his life so he would have to say that he doesn’t necessarily agree. “I’m not that great,” he chuckles nervously, trying to speed this conversation along before one of them grows soft again, for this is the worst place to share a kiss at the very moment. “Did you, um - did you need to speak to Jieqiong or something? Why are you…” 

Then, the man’s hands slide into his trouser pockets as he breathes out a deep sigh, merely several feet away from the model and close enough to permeate the nearby air with the scent of his perfume. “No, actually,” he says as he meets the model’s eyes. “I, matter-of-factly, came to speak to you. I… would like to apologize for what I did Friday night.”

Oh. “Apologize?” Zitao mutters quietly, as though the word was foreign. Why would the president want to apologize for kissing him? Sure, it may not have been consensual at the beginning of the conversation, for Zitao was merely trying to save him the heartbreak later, but if he really had wanted to stop it, Zitao would have sooner killed him than let some stranger kiss him extendedly. “Why would you apologize?”

“Don’t be silly,” Yifan chides him quietly, his voice lowering as though he were afraid of getting caught. “I kissed you without your permission, for I did have quite a few drinks and I was under the influence, regardless of it not at all being a valid excuse to invade your personal space that way - ”

“It’s okay,” he interrupts, and the man’s words fall silently into the air’s abyss. Zitao’s safety blanket has long since been shredded, so there is no longer any salvation to be redeemed from remaining abstinent. “I just… if I had really wanted to stop you, I would have. It’s okay, really.”

Despite the reassurance, the president doesn’t look anymore convinced as he stares at him with wary eyes, the emotions in his gaze tumultuous and shifty as they all intertwine restlessly. “It isn’t,” he shakes his head. “I’m being serious, Yingtao - I overstepped an important line and I need to be held accountable for that. I went against your word and forced you to kiss me, and you are allowed to agree with this. I will repent for what I’ve done to spare you of any discomfort.”

“I said it’s fine,” Zitao mutters lowly, cheeks pinking as his fingers intertwine. Suddenly, the ribbon feels weighted in his hands, and he feels as though the stick were a weapon.

“Are you sure?” The president presses in a low tone, inching a half-stride closer which causes Zitao to glance away shyly as their proximity diminishes quickly. “I mean it. This is your chance to tell me that I have done wrong.”

Zitao knows far too well, by now, that the man’s body language doesn’t always match what he says. On the surface, he is resisting and is trying to give the model space - he appreciates it, deep down, yet beneath the ebb of their feelings is the featherlight, seductive strokes of fingertips up his spine which causes him to shudder and arch, chest raising when he lets out a soft little gasp. Hook, line, and _sinker._  

“I - I mean it,” he struggles timidly, getting a mere moment of independent comfort before he finds himself being pulled flush against the man’s warm, broad chest despite his inhibitions to remain neutral, but he’s already long since crossed the line. “S-sir,” he stutters. “What are you doing?”

Hesitant in response, the man’s fingers glide up his sides and over the soft ridges of his ribs, as Zitao’s lungs fill and his body arches into him at the ticklish feeling, alighting his nerves in gooseflesh and raw sensitivity. “You’re getting thinner,” Yifan comments subtly, unhappily, as the crease between his tapered brows deepens. “I don’t like it. Have you not been eating?”

His eyebrows furrow, then, for he hadn’t expected of all things to come, for it to be a comment about his weight. Especially not, he must add, considering that it was the president’s own orders for him to shed pounds in the footsteps of this career. “I mean - I’ve been dieting like you told me,” he tells him, “but it’s… not a lot of food. I - I don’t really remember to eat that often. I just… _forget_ , but when I do eat, it’s a lot of water-weight vegetables, and… some proteins…” 

Zitao knows he should be eating better - despite being on a diet, he knows he has not been eating solely due to his stress, for it’s begun to have a wicked inclination to ruin his appetite when he finds himself overwhelmed. That being said, Zitao has not even been following the guidelines of his diet - rather, he’s been eating a third of his recommended dietary calories, which had only been a rough thousand to boot. He knows he is endangering himself with only ingesting three-hundred calories each day, but he can’t help it and he knows, should anybody find out, that it absolutely cannot be his mother. 

As though he knows that the statement is a farce, the man sighs as he shakes his head in disapproval, gentle fingertips brushing through the model’s hair. “You need to eat more,” the president scolds him carefully. “Remember to eat dinner tonight, please. Yes?”

“I can try,” the model sighs, “but no guarantees. It’s just… really stressful right now. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He hadn’t intended for it to come out so brusquely, vaguely rude as he shies his eyes away and yet just as simplistic and soft as he had always been. The man falls silent as his expression tenses and his thumb traces the line of Zitao’s ribcage in disdain. “Let me take you out for dinner, then,” Yifan offers boldly, brushing the model’s hair out of his face. “My treat. You will not have to abide by your corporeal diet when in my care.”

Not having expected it, Zitao’s eyes widen. “Mr. Wu?” He asks softly. “Isn’t that quite unprofessional?”

“It was not a request, Miss Huang,” is what he gets as an immediate response, slightly rigid and familiarly well-composed to finite ears. “You need to eat, and if I need to monitor your meals in order to make sure that you are eating, then so be it. I will drive you straight from work and will bring you home afterward. Let me do this for you, Yingtao. This isn’t healthy for you.”

His teeth sink into his bottom lip as he debates the offer - well, it wasn’t really an offer, more so a straightforward command, but Zitao could still make out the flippant little nuance of an offering within the statement. “I thought,” he begins timidly, and the president’s thumb brushes tenderly along his smooth cheek, “that you wanted me to eat less to lose weight. That’s what you said.”

“I know what I said,” Yifan scolds, “but listen to what I am saying now. You are going to get sick - please start eating more, Miss Huang. I will not ask twice.”

Caught between a figurative rock and a hard place, the model finds himself torn. It is not necessarily unlike the president to want to take private care of him - but it is, certainly, not like the president to say please. Lovelorn, Zitao cannot say no. “Alright,” he agrees in a quiet tone and dares to glance up into the man’s eyes. “I guess I can go.”  
  
“Six o’clock, then,” the president tells him as he pulls away, and Zitao is left in tatters as he tries to piece together what, exactly, just transpired. Did he just get asked on a date? Like, an actual date, this time? Frazzled, he does not know. “The moment your shift ends, you will report to the front lot and wait for me by my car. Do you understand?”

A date - with the president, of all people, his long-since boss who just so happened to have kissed him merely days prior - does not sound half bad. In fact, Zitao’s heartbeat actually quickens at the thought of it, proving that he is, indeed, excited. He struggles not to imagine dining in a luxurious eatery with the man, having wine with him and toasting to their strange, undefined relationship and the traces of libidinous tension laced within it. “Yes, Mr. Wu,” he responds quietly, his pulse hammering in his throat. 

Then, the man lets out a tall exhale, broad as his hand pulls away and his posture straightens. “Alright,” he says softly. “See you then.”

After a simple moment of elongated existing, the president turns on his heel and strides away, stepping out of the studio just as a startled little noise catches his attention as Jieqiong nearly walks right into the man. “Oh, President Wu,” she comments in surprise. “I hadn’t expected you to be here. Sorry, I - did you want a beverage or anything?”

Courteously, the man smooths out his blouse as he replies, “No thank you, Miss Zhou. I hope you do not mind, but I had to speak with Miss Huang for just a moment. Continue your practice, and please report to me, by the end of today, your progress.”

Zitao remains silent as the president closes the door behind him and two feminine, long-lashed eyes turn to him in confusion. How exactly is he supposed to explain to Jieqiong that the president had _not_ , in fact, come here to talk to him and had nearly kissed him again? Zitao couldn’t have mistaken the compassion in his eyes even if he had tried. 

Clearing her throat, then, Jieqiong strides over with soft thuds of sneakers against waxed wood as she extends a red-tinged electrolyte drink to him. “Here you go,” she says sweetly, smiling. “They didn’t have many flavors left, so I got you fruit punch - I hope that’s okay? As you can tell, it’s clearly not grape, but you also didn’t say you disliked any other flavors, so…” 

“No,” he responds calmly as he takes the drink from her, unscrews the cap, and sips at it. Little does she know that fruit punch just so happens to be one of his favorite beverage flavors, and Zitao wonders how she had managed to read him not only well but brilliantly, at that. “It’s good, thank you.”

Happy, Jieqiong grins. “I’m glad,” she announces. “So - should we start up again? I’ve got a _mean_ idea for the climax of the bridge and I think you’ll really like it! But - you should probably stretch for it first. Don’t want you tearing your hamstrings, now, do we?”

She strides over to the boombox as she speaks, picking up her phone to redirect herself to the ballad once more, and Zitao finds himself calmly smiling as he wipes his lips clean and sets his drink down. If Jieqiong knows about anything having to do with his existence, whether that be his appearance or his gender, or that be his muddied, nondescript relationship with the president, she keeps a very tight lip about it and doesn’t bring it up again. 

Then again, Zitao doesn’t think she would really be the type to keep it a secret if she knew.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“And then I told her, like - what makes you think I would date that dickhead? First of all, he called Shuhua ugly only because she wouldn’t sleep with him, and then got all pissy when we called him out on his small dick energy, but you know what? That was an uncalled-for fuckin’ move, and only a self-righteous narcissist would clap back at a girl just because she turned some dick down.”

Chuckling, Amber swirls her brush in the black cleansing sponge pad before she dips it into the loose coral pigment and dusts it across Dasom’s cheeks. “She probably knows that she deserves worlds better than Yuto, don’t even worry. Besides, why would she waste her time with someone like him when she’s female-leaning, anyway? But then again, he’d probably tell her some shit like, she’s only gay until she tries dick.”

A snort. “Yeah, well, he’s only straight until he tries it, by that same logic, so he has no room to talk. Guys are so rude.”

“Tell me about it,” Amber shakes her head as Jessica’s eyes flutter open against the glow of the vanity’s halogen lights, her eyes adjusting as she soaks up her appearance with disdain. “Besides, she’d probably be better off with someone like Shinwon, anyway. You know, sensitive, down-to-earth - ”

“My wings are uneven,” Jessica interjects abruptly, flatly, and the girls fall silent as her words hang thickly in the studio air. “Fix them.”

Frowning in apprehension as they realize just how much eyeshadow they will have to smudge off in order to fix her eyeliner wings, the girls do as told and reach for the wipes. It is Dasom who wraps the moist towelette around her fingernail and gently begins to scrape at the uneven ink as Amber remains silent, very much used to this kind of behavior, and reaches for the eyeshadow pots in order to start all over. 

“Oh, did you hear that Younghee snagged a collaboration with _Cosmopolitan_?” Dasom asks in excitement as she reblends the concealer around the model’s eyes. “I’m so proud of her, like, holy shit. It seems like just yesterday, she was doing that Victorian lolita shoot when she was moved to Marketing.”

Impressed, Amber’s eyebrows raise. “Did she really? Wow, good for her. She deserves it, honestly. She should be on par with people like Sojin at this point. At least she’s finally being recognized for her talents, you know?”

“Ugh, I _know_ ,” Dasom stresses joyously, shaking the liquid eyeliner pen to distribute the ink. “This would be so much easier if the president wasn’t so choosy with his models. Picky, picky, picky, that’s all he is.”

As a makeup brush swipes over the model’s eyelids, her expression twists as she eyes down her own reflection in the vanity mirror. “What does she have that I don’t have?” She speaks up bitterly, her tone low and emotionless. On the other side of the quicksilver barrier, her tawny hair lies dull, her eyes soulless. “Why is it she who gets to have everything?”

In confusion, Dasom frowns as the eyeliner pen in her hand slackens. “She - _who_? Younghee? ‘Cause, you should know, Younghee doesn’t actually have that many benefits as a Marketing model - actually, I think she really doesn’t have _any_ , like, this is her first collaboration and stuff - ”

“No,” Amber replies stoically, “not Younghee. She’s talking about Yingtao.”

“...Yingtao?” She asks quietly. “What do you mean Yingtao has everything? What are you talking about?”

Biting her lip, Jessica’s hands slap down onto the vanity top as her anger spikes, causing the girls to jerk away from her and leave her makeup sloppy and half-done, one eye painted and the other bare. “Didn’t you ever learn how to speak?” She barks into the mirror, staring Dasom down with a challenging glare. “She has _everything_ that I had to work to get - her clothes, her hair, her friends, her position, it’s all supposed to be _mine_. And do you know what else she has that I _don’t_ have?”

“Sooyeon,” Amber comments quietly, hushedly. “We don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, _fuck_ yourself,” the model snaps as her chair spins, her chest heaving and her eyes glistening. “Did you know that Yifan likes her? _Her_ , of all fucking people, instead of _me_? Did you know that they kissed outside of the bar the other night?”

“...They did?” Dasom whispers. “I - I didn’t know.”

“That’s because you never listen!” Jessica cries out. “Neither of you ever listen to me - neither of you care. And now, he hates me and has fallen for that - that… _thing_ with fake hair and an ugly face, and I’m supposed to just be okay with it? Why is it _her_ who gets to have Yifan?” Trembling, her hands clench at her sides as a single tear flits down her cheek and the shadows of her face deepen as she tries to hide it behind her long hair. “Why? Why isn’t it me? After all that I’ve done for him.”

Softening, Amber stands from the chair and reaches forward to wrap her arms around the frail model, pulling her slightly closer in a forgiving hug as she allows her personal space. The sentiment had intended to be well-received and helpful, but the girl begins to try to shove her away to no prevail.

“I hate her,” she cries against Amber’s suit jacket. “I hate her so fucking much, I swear…”

A sigh. “I know, Sooyeon,” Amber mumbles as she smooths out the girl’s hair, sharing a sideways glance with the third party in the room that informs her not to ask. “I know.”

“No, you _don’t_ know!”

Roughly, Amber is shoved back into the vanity as the products upon it clatter loudly as they scatter, some rolling onto the floor with methodical movements. If she had pushed any harder, the vanity mirror surely would have cracked. As the room falls into a deadly silence, Dasom’s face pales as she refrains from making any sudden noises, a hand over her mouth in shock as her long braids curtain down her shoulders. 

“You don’t know anything about me,” the model sobs out, her hands trembling as her world crumbles. “When was the last time anyone actually took the time to get to know me? When was the last time either of you cared about _me_ over that stupid Huang girl? When was the last time _**anyone**_ paid attention to another person that isn’t named Huang Yingtao? It’s all about _**her**_!!”

As the girl’s composure absolutely combusts, the models can only do so much as hold their tongues lest they speak out of line and make things worse. However, the silence is not well-received.

“Exactly,” Jessica croaks out as her mascara runs down her cheeks in grayed streams. “That’s what I thought. You’re both fucking fake.”

“Sooyeon, just breathe,” Dasom coaxes quietly. “It’s okay.”

Bitterly, the model scoffs as she spins to glare at her reflection once more in the brightly-lit mirror. “Look at you trying to give me advice,” she spits flatly. “What’s the use? She has everything that I ever wanted, and you - she has _you two_ , too. You don’t need me anymore.”

Swiftly, Dasom shakes her head, her braids swaying. “Don’t say that - we’re your friends.”

It’s as the seconds begin to stretch on that the model finally turns slowly on her heel, the delicate periwinkle robe around her shoulders swaying ever so slightly as she turns pained, reddened eyes to her two comrades. “If you were my friends,” she admits in a hoarse tone, her eyes glassy and dulled as her resolve finally breaks, “then you would be on my side in this.”

“Sooyeon - ”

“ _Don’t,_ ” she stresses curtly, shoving her weight off of the unstable wood of the vanity and pushing past the girls as she heads toward the studio doors. “Just leave me alone.”

 

  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“I’ve never been somewhere this nice,” he admits shyly, rouged cheeks warm beneath the glow of the candlelight. “I can’t, uh - I can’t really afford to eat at places like this, normally. Plus, if I had known we’d be eating somewhere expensive, I would have dressed more nicely.”

Perhaps it is a silly thing to say, considering his cream-toned blouse pairs prettily with his blush-pink pencil skirt, formal enough to dine in a high-class eatery such as this. Handsomely, the president sits across from him at their small, circular table draped in a thick, elegant cloth in a deep merlot. Just as he, the president is also dressed in his work clothes, the same mint blouse that slits down the middle and exposes mere inches of his broad, slightly-tanned bare chest, hairless and begging to be touched, and somehow, the view feels much more sinful than having a secret relationship with his employer. 

“I told you already that tonight’s dinner was on me,” Yifan tells him smugly as his eyebrows raise slightly, the greyed shadow of a smirk upon his lips in the dim light. “Please, Yingtao, order whatever you like. The costs of these meals are merely pocket change to me, so do not feel distraught about ordering something expensive.”

Zitao flushes, then, for it’s far too nice of a gesture for him to offer to spend so much money on _one_ person. “Oh - okay,” he stutters, struggling to keep calm as he reaches for the menu, black-leathered and classy, and flips it open to glance through it. 

Unfortunately for him, most, if not all, of the meals listed are in a language that he is not familiar with, one with accent marks above the letters. He would love to try new things if only he could understand just what it was that he was intrigued about and the ingredients within such. His struggle, although quiet and faultless, must be obvious by the way Yifan shifts in front of him before he asks, “Do you need help?”

Surprised, he glances up, wide-eyed and long-lashed. “Oh,” he mutters. “Um… yes, I’m sorry. I, um… would you recommend anything?”

Expression awkward and attractively stoic, the president lets out a little snort. “Of course not, for I don’t know anything about you nor your tastes, other than the fact that you cannot read modern French,” he states, attempting to make a little joke about it, which causes Zitao’s cheeks to pink as the lightheartedness sticks to his skin. “Tell me what you like to eat, and I will order it for you.”

Ah, that’s right. Zitao is allowed to have _options_ , for once, other than leafy green salads and unfulfilling slices of fruit. “I like steak,” he offers offhandedly. “And… sometimes I like shellfish, and mac and cheese…” 

Quietly, the president nods and extends a hand to take the menu from the model - at which, Zitao frowns, yet hands over his menu regardless. “I see,” Yifan states. “Then I think I know what you might like to eat. Forgive me if I stumble over any of the lines made by your preferences, though, I have confidence that you will like what I choose.”

Unused to being catered to in such a diligent way, Zitao can only nod as the ribboning waves of his hair bounce and sway, pretty beneath the illumination. Normally, it is he who has to make the decisions about what to eat and how much of such, rather than having some actually _guess_ where his taste lies and bravely confide in their self-orchestrated decisions. And, unlike other restaurants of more affordable tickets that Zitao has been to, their waitress does not take requests for their drinks when she arrives and rather brings with her a bottle of red wine, despite any distastes at the table, and pours both of them a glass as she introduces herself as _Kate_.

Halfway through the first sentence, though, Zitao realizes he can’t understand a word that’s coming out of her mouth, whether it be in French or perhaps another language he is unfamiliar with, which makes it all that much weirder to understand how there would be a French district in this segment of the country. 

Nevertheless, the president both amazes him and completely swindles his heart away as he begins to handsomely reply to her in fluent French, a language that Zitao never knew the man spoke. Thickly and sensually, the foreign syllables roll off the man’s tongue as he speaks to their waitress with utmost politeness, a businessy grin on his lips which holds the power to stop the model’s heart, and Zitao can only wonder in curiosity just what, exactly, the man is ordering for him to eat. Knowing Yifan’s secretive humor, he has a feeling that it will not be a successful guessing game. 

“So,” Yifan says smoothly as the waitress turns on her heel with their menus, finalizing their orders as she leaves to implement them, “I never quite got to ask you anything about yourself.”

Ah, yes. Zitao supposes people do talk about themselves on dates, even though this had not yet been officially classified as a date. “Well - hi, I’m Yingtao,” Zitao replies softly, and the president’s lips quirk into a shadowed smirk. “I’m a post-Associate’s drop-out, I do photography on the side but dropped it mainly to focus on working here - ”

“No, Yingtao,” the president shakes his head, folding his hands suavely on the table in front of himself. “I meant your hobbies. I know who you are and I know of your post-secondary history, though not what you like to do.”

Oh. If that wasn’t confirmation that this outing was far from a professional business meeting and had dipped heavily over the line of a romantic date, Zitao wasn’t sure he would find such a thing. Yet, come to think of it, what _does_ Zitao like to do? Sure, he enjoys working and enjoys photography, but the president already knows that, and the company already knows that. What does he like to do? “I like sunsets,” he says calmly. “Like - watching sunsets, I enjoy that. I like to read because it helps with my anxiety if I can get engrossed enough, it keeps me calm.”

“How is your anxiety?” Yifan asks him. “I never quite got to ask about it. What do you deal with in regards to it?”

Exhaling smoothly, Zitao begins to explain. “I get panic attacks, and when one hits, usually I have to sit down or sit beneath something sturdy so that I feel safe.”

He remembers, very vividly, actually, what Yifan’s very first reaction had ever been at the mention of Zitao’s anxiety disorder. He had frowned, stressed down his brow, and had stared at him as though he were offensive to look at. Now, Yifan’s eyes have softened and darkened with empathy, seeming to hurt at the mention of Zitao’s suffering. “Are they a result of something traumatic?” He questions, his tone having lowered. 

Feeling awkward having to talk about himself, the model shivers a little bit and glances away timidly. “No,” he shakes his head, “but I was diagnosed with panic disorder after my mother’s diagnosis. Sometimes I have really vivid nightmares that… I’d really rather not talk about, but other times I just get regular panic attacks. It’s… not fun.”

“I apologize,” Yifan sighs, his expression slightly pained. “I never knew a person with panic disorder before. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever known a person with a mental illness, before - I’ve not had one myself.”

He sighs, knowing very well that must be false, for the way Amber had put it when she had been telling the story, the man had sunken into a severe depressive cycle when Mochou passed away and had been on-and-off suffering ever since, an unfortunate aftereffect of grief. “It’s alright, I’ve been medicated for it for a little while now, and it helps.”

Seeming to understand, the man gives him a slow nod. “I do not get much free time,” he states. “Therefore, I do not have many hobbies. Though, I do very much enjoy designing clothing as well as shopping for fabrics, being able to touch and feel different textures and swaths and thicknesses. I feel the differences from that of pure Egyptian mink, to that of silky, ruched shantung much akin to the way a woman may discern whether she suits cool tones or warm tones. It is second nature to me, and it is what I love the most.”

Intrigued, then, Zitao’s embarrassment and fragile self-consciousness begins to melt away. “How long have you been a couturier?” 

“I started when I had turned fourteen,” the president tells him coolly, and Zitao’s manicured eyebrows raise as he realizes just how _young_ the man had been when his prowess was birthed. “I began very much the way everyone would expect, creating costumes in secondary school for their theater department. In fact, the theater department enjoyed them so much that my creations were sent to a regional art show to be featured, and I won scholarships toward university that way. Unfortunately, I never went to university to pursue a degree, but I did take business courses as I began this company at age nineteen.”

“That’s really amazing,” the model grins as the man reaches for his wine to take a sip, and Zitao has to force himself not to stare at the way the merlot stains his lips a luscious, kissable red as the glass is pulled away. “I’m not good at anything like that.”

A scoff. “You can’t say that,” Yifan scolds him gently, his voice completely void of any anger. “You are very good at wearing my clothing and being photographed in the pieces.”

Stunned, Zitao blushes. “Th - thank you,” he stutters as he reaches for his own wine to drown out his embarrassment once more, but all the president gives him is a kind, blood-warming grin. “So you named your brand after your initials, I take it?”

“My professional initials,” Yifan confirms with a nod, “ _KW_. My personal information is not for the world’s consumption, so when I was eighteen, I created a business alias to disguise myself and to protect my personal information.”

Lips pursing, Zitao gets it. “That makes sense,” he says. “You’re a big-time fashion designer, and you don’t want everyone peeping in on you every chance they get or better yet, stealing your personal information and defaming your character, right?”

The corners of his lips curling upward in a little grin, the man nods once more. “That’s exactly it. You’re quite brilliant, you know that?”

Despite what everybody had always told him, Yifan is such a truly gentle soul, rough around the edges from years of overworking and tensed stress but entirely soft beneath that, and Zitao cannot help but fall for him. After all, who wouldn’t at such a point in their partnership? When Zitao is being catered to hand and foot and is being pampered as though a helpless little damsel, he can’t help but let himself indulge just for once, for it is not often that he gets to do so. Soon, he isn’t sure he will be able to resist kissing the man on his own, at that. 

“I see our food,” the president says after a long moment, and Zitao perks up at the mention of dinner, for it has been far too long since he’s actually sat down and had a true meal. Just as he promised, the waitress approaches them with the dishes atop a tray which sits on her shoulder, and Zitao can only watch in awe as she hands him what the president must have ordered for him, and it’s only then that he realizes he truly has _no idea_ what it is. “I hope you enjoy it,” Yifan says as Zitao stares at the dish, shocked in a new way as he soaks up the sight of expensive, gourmet food that isn’t a packaged salad that was purchased from the work commissary. 

Excited to try whatever it is, Zitao picks up his fork and eagerly digs in.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
By the time Zitao resurfaces long enough to tell the president just how delicious the meal was, it’s been wholly eaten and the plate had been figuratively _licked_ clean - not literally, of course, for Zitao would never lick chinaware in such an establishment. Though, as he sits back with the ambrosial memories of eating such a dish on his mind, he begins to remember just how it feels to carry a food baby. “That was incredible,” he breathes out as he settles prettily back in his chair, bosom falling as he exhales and the creases of his blouse deepen. Handsomely, Yifan glances up at him as he elegantly brings another slice of medium-rare lamb to his lips and downs it rather quickly, perhaps in order to speak. “What was it, if you don’t mind me finally asking?”

“It must have been good, for you didn’t take a second to breathe before it was gone,” Yifan chuckles to himself low in his throat, setting his silverware against the rim of his plate as he reaches for his cloth napkin to dab at his lips with it. “It was custom-made, a _galette de_ _rois_ filled with lobster and shrimp in a black truffle and Sichuan oil, which is all then topped in melted gruyere, customary in the region of northeastern Brittany. Being that you had never experienced French cuisine before, I had requested that the waitress add a few elements of familiarity for you, given the ingredients added to it. Was it a good idea?”

Not having expected that to have been what it was that he just ate, Zitao’s heart bleats as he glances up, starstruck. Yifan really thought of him in that much detail to bring approachability to his food, something that was not even on their miniscule menu? Zitao is lucky if he doesn’t leap across the table _right now_ to steal a wonderfully soft and passionate kiss, for when is he again going to find someone who treats him so carefully and thoughtfully? 

“You did all that just for me?” He whispers, completely smitten. 

“Of course,” the man nods, as though it were simply in his natural order to do such a thing. “Did you want any seconds? Another glass of wine, or perhaps a dessert?”

He blinks, stunned. “No, that… that was enough, thank you. Really… thank you, Mr. Wu.”

As the waitress comes around to hand them their check for the night and Zitao is, naturally, made to watch as the man pays the bill and writes out the tip, Yifan gives him a warm little grin, simply a curl of pressed lips as an accepting approval. “You’re very welcome.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Having taken his car to the restaurant, as well, Zitao is seen off in the parking lot, rather than at his front door the way he would have expected a true first day to end, but he can’t exactly complain. After all, it is very dark and rather secluded, much more so than the front steps of his apartment.

“That was really fantastic,” he compliments as he stops in his tracks by his driver’s side door, right next to where the president had parked, as well, in his sleek black car that must have cost him close to millions. “Thank you, sir, I really needed a meal like that.”

Kindly, Yifan nods. “I’m glad I could have been of service tonight. I will have to speak to Qian about adjusting your diet - you are getting too thin and you are not eating enough to compensate, but I hope that this sufficed for the time being.”

“It did,” he smiles. “Thank you.”

“Ah,” the man comments softly, “also, for the time being while I adjust your diet, I do have to ask that you continue your waist training with Qian, and I will look into raising your daily cardio as well as your protein intake to help you build muscle rather than fats.”

Eyes widening, Zitao’s cheeks pink. That’s right - the man had previously shown his appreciation for Zitao’s figure, having gotten slightly shy around the mention of his musculature. “Alright,” he agrees. “Well, goodnight, sir, and thank you for dinner.”

“Don’t thank me, Yingtao, you needed it,” Yifan gives him a courteous nod as he raises a hand in a handsome little wave. “See you tomorrow at work.”

Suave and charming, the man bows elegantly, the mint satin of his blouse flouncing with the movement as the lapels fall open slightly to expose the downward angle of the man’s chest to him, and Zitao’s cheeks pink. No matter what others may have to say about the president’s behavior and his history of struggling with anger management as well as his situational depression, whether he believes he had suffered or not, he has always been nothing but charming to Zitao. In hindsight, there _had_ been times where Zitao had gotten on his every nerve and had been picked apart as though a mammoth’s rib, but Zitao had seen women be screamed down and forced to cry as a result of the embarrassment whilst he remains with his sanity intact. Had the man shown him kindness from the very first day perhaps because of his anxiety disorder? Had he known that if he were to roar at Zitao the way he does his other employees as he douses his anger upon them, that Zitao likely would have had an attack? 

Glancing up, Zitao watches the man begin to round the front of his own car as he reaches into his trouser pocket for his keys. This person, despite everything, has always proven to be completely selfless and compassionate, and Zitao… 

“M - Mr. Wu,” he calls out, pulse throbbing low in his throat. The president looks up, then, from where he had been rifling through his keyring, a nuanced glimmer of confusion on his face. “I - I think I grabbed your wallet by accident and I think you might have grabbed mine.”

Quietly, the man blinks at him as his expression placifies. “Oh,” he mutters out loud, glancing down at the model’s shoulder bag which lies beneath an arm, against a hip. Shaking his head in self-disbelief, he strides back around the car to retrieve his missing wallet. “Well, thank you for noticing, I hadn’t even been paying attention.”

Swallowing, Zitao’s anxiety heightens. “It’s alright,” he manages to get out, hands trembling along the strap of his bag. With only several steps, the man is once again in front of him, tall and broad and intimidating as he expects to be handed back his wallet. “I think I have it in my bag. I’ll check for you, but I think you might have put my wallet in one of your pockets.”

Nodding, Yifan understands and glances down to draw his attention to his pockets as he begins to check his rear for the model’s missing wallet.

Seeing his opportunity, Zitao swallows the lump in his throat and forces himself to be brave, for he’s got one shot at this. Although he feels as though he may very well throw up out of nervousness, he reaches forward swiftly, digging his nails into silky mint satin, and yanks the man forward to press their lips together against the driver’s side door of Zitao’s car.

Likely startled, the man grunts a little against his lips, but Zitao can finally let out the breath he had been holding all evening as warm, broad hands slowly slide up his hips as they find his waist, the man’s warm lips moving against his own as he threads his hands into the back of Yifan’s gelled-back hair. 

He had expected to keep it relatively chaste, just the slightest moist press of a tongue against lips as passion soars hotly in his chest, as the heat from the man’s body presses against his own. That is, until Yifan practically shoves him back into the car’s door, pressing him there as the kiss deepens and an experienced tongue meets his own, which causes Zitao to let out an excited, aroused little mewl. Distantly, the man still tastes of his dinner, warm and delicious and strangely enticing, and Zitao finds himself unable to stop, craving for _more_. 

Which, in retrospect, makes it all that much more annoying when Yifan pulls away and ceases their kiss, his pupils equally as blown as Zitao’s heart feels. “What was that for?” He asks in a gruff, breathy tone, lips swollen and reddened in the deep nighttime glow. 

Shyly, Zitao can only avert his eyes as his hands lower and come to rest upon the sides of the man’s neck. “I just wanted to give you a goodnight kiss,” he responds quietly, nervously, but the honesty in his answer makes Yifan _truly_ smile, and that, in itself, makes it worth it.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“I got it, Lily, don’t worry.”

“Oh,” she smiles, her big, bright eyes gleaming under the lights. “Alright, I’ll go clean up her bedpan, then.”

As the nurse heads out to begin tidying up his mother’s bed, Zitao turns his attention back to the buttons of her nightdress, slipping them into their respective slits one by one. Having helped Nurse Lily bathe her after having arrived late, plenty after his mother had finished her dinner and had been waiting up for him, Zitao had sprung right into action when Lily had told him it was bath night. With the state she lingers in now, his mother receives two baths a week and two bandage changes each day, one in the morning and one at night. 

When having her bandages changed, his mother will receive a standing bath, having to be stripped down and merely wiped so to clean the afflicted areas before her bandages are reapplied where the machine’s wires have to be repositioned into her flesh. Having done it so much, it has become merely second nature to Zitao to see his mother’s freshly-bloomed bruises from the way her body reacts to the wires, but when he had not been accustomed to seeing such a sight, he would weep in despair over what the hospital was doing to his mother’s body. Still, she continues to tell him that it doesn’t hurt, but he knows that she’s lying.

He knows that she’s tired.

He knows that she fakes a smile for him each and every day, for he is the last ray of sunshine that exists in her life and without it, she would fall victim to the endless sleep. He knows that she is both mentally and physically exhausted from her disease and he knows that she vomits up nearly everything she eats from the extent of the internal damage that the chemotherapy has done to her. He knows that despite what she tells him, that she had a good night’s rest or that she managed to keep down an entire banana that day, that she is lying just to make him happy, for he can see the exhaustion in the grey of her eyes beneath her aged wrinkles. 

Sighing, he fastens the last button and glances back up as he takes his mother’s frail shoulders in his hands. “Alright, time for bed, mother,” he mumbles coolly, leading her out of the restroom to head back toward her cot. 

“You were late today, Zitao,” she tells him as he helps to maneuver her slowly into the bed, bloom-latticed, wrinkled legs climbing the length of the tidy white sheet as she manages to lay herself down. “Did something happen?”

As he raises the duvet to tuck her in, he shakes his head, his shoulder-length hair swaying slightly. “No, I didn’t mean to be so late. I was having some dinner.”

At the mention of food, her eyes seem to move from their usual resting position as she gives him a glance-over as he tucks the duvet in at her sides. He had rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows in order to bathe her so that his sleeves would not have become soaked and had worn a belt on his normally slim-fitting jeans, today. “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” she notes unhappily, her voice monotonous and slightly melancholy, and it jolts right through Zitao like lightning. 

Self-consciously, then, he follows her gaze to see where it is that she had been staring, and reaches up to unfold his shirt sleeves as he figures it out. “Sorry,” he tells her. “I haven’t really been eating much, but I ate dinner today because of that.”

His mother looks up at him with clouded eyes, pained and completely torn, and Zitao can see the heartbreak in her irises at the thought of her son slowly killing himself alongside her. “Zitao,” she chastises emotionlessly, “you have to eat more. I will be okay.”

Zitao falls quiet at her words, for he knows that she will not be okay, but he also knows that he can’t worry his mother like this and that it will only put more stress on her condition than what she already carries. “I will eat more,” he tells her quietly as he sinks to his knees beside her and lays a tender hand upon hers. “I’m sorry. I’m just… busy.”

“Please eat breakfast tomorrow, and lunch, too,” his mother suggests gently. “And then, please eat dinner. You worry me a lot, you know that, Zitao?”

Sighing, he nods his head, for he tends to worry everyone, it seems. “I know, mother, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, letting his eyes fall closed for just a moment as he lays his head beside their hands on the cot. “I know you don’t have long,” he begins to tell her quietly, “but I just want you to know how much I love you. You’ve done so much for me, and I appreciate you _so much_ , and I know I don’t tell you often enough, but I love you and I would do anything for you, mother. If… if that time comes… I will do my best not to cry, okay?”

Beside him, his mother lets out a choked-off little breath before she says, “Zitao, where is this coming from? Are you sensing something from God himself that I should know about?”

He lifts his head. “No,” he replies, “it’s just very important that you know how much I care for you and how much I’ll miss you. I worry you a lot, I know I do, because I worry Luhan a lot, too, but I’m doing my best for the both of you. I’m doing the best that I can because I know that’s what you two would want, and I know that’s what I would want for myself, too. I’m just… I’m trying, and I’m trying to get better at eating. I’ll be okay. Okay?”

Softly, his mother lifts her hand from underneath his and threads it gently into his hair, simply laying it there as a comforting gesture to let the familiar warmth from her palm bleed into his scalp, and he could cry in happiness as he simply lets it happen. “I love you,” she tells him, and it hurts to hear that.

“I love you, too,” he tells her as he forces a little smile as tears gather at his waterlines. “I have to go now, okay? I have work in the morning, but I’ll come back tomorrow afterward and we can have dinner together, yeah? You usually like that, but for now, you have to get some sleep and then I’ll be here tomorrow.”

As he packs up his things and heads toward the door, his mother gives him a little bit of a wave and a grin as he heads out. “I love you, Zitao.”

Hearing her response from merely several steps out the door, it doesn’t go unnoticed to him that she doesn’t respond with _me too._

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
At work, the president regains their normal work routine of pretending they do not go out on dates and kiss and hug one another off the premises, and Zitao is very grateful for it. The man does not acknowledge him beyond a simple greeting as they walk past each other in the foyer and certainly does not show any affection nor compassion for him whatsoever when Zitao arrives in the studio and finds him nitpicking a younger Marketing model that morning, and it brings Zitao nothing but honest relief. After all, he knows for certain that he would not be able to remain that composed, but then again, the president has had practice in the art of secret relationships, and although they may not be officially dating, Zitao still cherishes as much secrecy as he can get.

His first assignment that day is not a shoot but is rather to help Qian clean up the black-box from the after-effects of a Recreation show, which means when Qian meets him down there and he manages to get an eyeful, the place is an absolute _pigsty._  

“What happened in here?” He asks her as he tiptoes carefully over discarded clothing and even what looks like fallen hair extensions, stranded and tangled where they lay haphazardly on the slanted floor. “Was there a tornado that I didn’t know about, or something?”

Humored, Qian lets out a little laugh as she hands him a bag to begin collecting the pieces in. “This happens every time Recreation has a show because that is how the managers over there teach their models organization and cleanliness. Before you are moved to Marketing, you have to be able to pick up after yourself, of course, and you have to prove that you are a hygienic, organized person. That is how President Wu chooses which models to move to Marketing is during shows such as this one, he will watch and make notes of who picks up after themselves and who does not. It’s like having a preschool in a university.”

He could laugh at that analogy, yet at the same time, he feels bad because his friends are in Recreation and the firm looks down upon them as inferiors. Still, Zitao knows that this is the kind of thing where just one person could ruin it for the entire department. “Minseo is pretty cleanly,” Zitao comments offhandedly as he takes a handful of a sequined dress and stuffs it into the plastic casing. “Do you know why she hasn’t been moved back to Marketing?”

“It’s rare for models to be moved back up here if they had already been demoted,” Qian explains. “If a model were demoted down to Recreation, it’s kind of like a deciding factor for President Wu that they must not have been meant for such a department. Of course, it can be done if you happen to be demoted, but it takes years of trial and error and oftentimes, girls resign before they manage to be promoted back up to Marketing simply because it’s such a slippery slope and they grow weary.”

That makes sense because it would be silly for someone to flip-flop and be moved back to Marketing if they keep their station clean for only several days. It seems to be a skill that they need to learn rather than to force for the sake of a promotion, and Zitao actually really appreciates the professional diligence and attention paid to such a thing on the president’s part. “He really takes his company seriously, doesn’t he?” 

Smiling, Qian looks up at him. “You don’t know the half of it, Yingtao. This company is all he’s got, really, so he makes sure to put all of his efforts into it no matter what. As you know, this company went into one standstill but one standstill only, because his sales plummeted and he realized that he couldn’t put hundreds of people out of work and be responsible for homelessness that way. He’s grown older, and with that, he’s grown more intelligent and more composed, so he knows more so, now, how to hold his company down and how to protect them.”

He finds his cheeks warm as the words stick to his skin, for Yifan is so protective and caring for his entire company no matter how his immediate behavior may seem. Although he may appear to not care when it comes to his models and their health and emotions, he protects them with their positions here regardless, whether that be in as a coordinator or whether it may have to be in a lower position. “That’s so kind,” he finds himself absentmindedly mumbling. 

“He’s a good guy,” Qian says. “No matter how prickly he can be at times, he truly loves what he does.”

As he fills the first bag and sets it aside tiredly, Zitao decides that he couldn’t agree more. He’s seen how Yifan’s eyes sparkle when he talks about fashion and creating pieces and how his expressions really come to life when he talks about his business. Zitao can tell just by watching him speak that this is truly where his heart lies, that this is not simply a farce for him to make money and keep a family business alive against his own will - this is what he wants to do with his future. This is what he wants to do for the rest of his life, if possible, and Zitao admires that.

As he’s opening up a second bag to begin cleaning the front aisle, though, his back pocket begins to vibrate and he immediately pauses cleaning as he reaches for his cell phone to see who it is. “I have to take this,” he tells Qian aloud, and she glances up at him before holding her thumb up as a sign of consent for him to take a call. 

Thankful, he heads toward the back of the theater for a little bit of privacy without entirely leaving. 

Qian, as devout and hardworking as she is, has had her share of rocky pathways in this company. Six years in the running, she has long since proven herself as one of the president’s most devout employees and coordinators, at that, but the president’s history with his own mental health and emotional welfare has not been the most stable. His collapse with Mochou’s death had represented, what everyone was lead to believe, the downfall of the company from thereon out,  but the president had managed to bounce back within a few months after mourning and after realizing that he couldn’t simply live selfishly and that he couldn’t force others to suffer with him. 

When the company had resumed its run, the road to regaining its fame had remained fractured and uneven. Each year on the anniversary of her death, the president spends the day at home mourning and praying for her happiness up in Heaven, making it the one and only absence he takes yearly. Some of her coworkers have said that the president doesn’t even take sick days and will run to the hospital for emergency medical attention before resuming work, as he does not want it to conflict with his schedules. On that specific annual date, however, nothing stops him from taking personal time to be alone and to hurt alone.

Qian feels for him, for she wishes that they could be with him that day to shower him with praise and affection and remind him that he is well-appreciated, but she also knows that he needs to be alone with his late wife’s memories and that those independencies are what keep him going. The knowledge that she is always with him and will always be with him is what helps him through his days, and Qian is proud of him for continuing to brave it, for it must be one of the hardest things in the world to call yourself a widow.

A loud, clamorous clatter catches her off guard and causes her to jump as she turns on her heel to see where the noise had come from. “Yingtao?” She calls out, staring down the aisle in the direction of where the model stands, her forgotten cell phone having fallen to the frosty floor and her hands trembling in front of her bosom as she stands pale-white and immobile beneath the lights. “Yingtao, is everything okay?”

As though in a trance, the girl turns to her with a ghostly countenance and tears in her eyes, and Qian’s heart plummets to the floor. “It’s my mom,” the model croaks out, beginning to pitifully sob as her world crumbles down. “She’s… she slipped into a coma this morning, and they can’t get her out of it…”

Just the icing on the cake, it seems to be, and this is definitely the last thing that this company needs to deal with. Compassionate and emotional as is, Qian strides forward to wrap her in her arms and tells her that everything will be okay, despite every long-time employee here knowing very well that such a statement is the biggest lie one person could tell. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Despite knowing that he is well-loved and is certainly well-supported at the firm, Zitao finds himself unable to focus on anything other than the crippling worry that he may never be able to tell his mother his final goodbye.

Qian had been especially careful with him, practically holding his hand the second he had entered the studio the next morning and immediately folding herself around him as though he may crumble. Today, his schedule is rather packed, and despite the knowledge that it will help him get his mind off of everything else and give him the opportunity to simply tune in to his work and not have to think of much else, Qian knows him. Although not necessarily familially or nearly as skin-deep as Luhan knows him, Qian knows him. Qian knows that he tends to drift in the middle of photo shoots when he cannot concentrate, which only makes the president angry and frustrated and it only makes Zitao seem unprofessional and disinterested. 

His first assignment for the day is a photoshoot for another upcoming launch, something full of plaids in different colors and a ponytail high enough to make his follicles alight with pain. Although aware that he looks great, as he always does when on set, Zitao does not feel equally great. In fact, Zitao finds it hard to feel _anything_ other than terrified and so anxious that he may well throw up all over his unbuttoned plaid overcoat. 

It’s truly a shame when he notices the dissonant disdain on the photographer’s face, someone other than Mr. Park who he has not yet become accustomed to and, therefore, has not yet become accustomed to Zitao and his panic disorder and unerring worry. Therefore, when Zitao struggles to focus and struggles to follow instructions, the photographer begins to get angry.

“Can you not hear me properly, or something?” The man snaps at him behind the camera, rigid presses of his fingers upon the buttons as he hastily adjusts the settings, and it fills Zitao with an ugly sense of dread and worry that the man may actually _throw_ the camera at him. “Your eyes are so dull - what’s the matter with you today, Huang?”

It stings, it really hurts to know that he’s let down the staff simply because he cannot manage to concentrate, and it really stings to make his own staff angry. “I’m sorry,” he offers weakly, unable to give much else in terms of an apology. “I’ll - I’ll try again.”

It must not come off as sincere, for the photographer rolls his eyes and pulls the camera’s strap over his head as he concludes his willingness to shoot him any longer. “Let’s call it a day for now,” he states flatly, and something levels out coldly in Zitao’s gut, for he knows that it is against company policy to quit a photoshoot in the middle for any reason other than the president’s word. Great, now he’ll have to hear about it from management and have his ass handed to him in a to-go box. 

Which, in the overstressed mind of a twenty-four-year-old, makes it harder to admit to his own faults as he tries his hardest to offer an innocent front. 

As the photographer quits their act and begins to clean up the set, Qian very quickly lurches into action and wraps comforting hands around his shoulders as she walks him away from the sight, hoping to distract him from the gnawing anxiety that comes with being at fault. “It’s alright,” she tells him as she seats him at one of the vanities to begin removing the pins from his hair, though his eyes are dark and dim and lack everything that makes one human. 

 _It’s not your fault_ , she reminds him as he stares sullenly back at his own reflection in the mirror, wondering just where he went so very wrong. _This kind of thing happens naturally, and maybe it’s finally the time to let her go_ , is all that she offers him, and it stings to have that be the choice string of words which she relays to him. He feels as though she could have said literally _anything_ else, perhaps reassuring him that his mother would wake up and this would all just be a fluke that fell upon the doctor’s shoulders, likely from neglect. 

No matter how she tries to comfort him and coax him back into the safety of his sanity, Zitao knows his mother’s physicality and knows the struggles she has gone through, and never has her body completely given out on her this way. This is the point of no return, and no amount of reassurance is going to change that and make her wake up again. 

When the first tear finally falls, glossily streaking the soft skin of his painted cheeks, Zitao begins to crumble as all of the strings holding him up finally snap.

Qian hugs him where he sits in the chair, warm where she swipes over his back in maternal, soothing circles, and quickly begins to take the makeup off of the model’s face, for the number of tears that will be shed will render it beyond the point of salvation. When Zitao sees the ruined tissues stained with shades of olive and bright fuschias, it reduces him to a softening point where even the smallest things upset him, such as losing the beauty upon his face in the midst of his sobbing.

By the time she is onto her third wet-wipe, Zitao’s eyes and cheeks have become stained with dark gray shadows as his mascara runs, but he can’t bring himself to care as she ever-so-gently cleans his skin so he may feel a little less disgusting about his life, right now. “It’s not your fault,” she reminds him quietly, knowing very well that he isn’t going to respond yet very aware that reassurance is vital right now. “It’s going to be okay, Yingtao, I promise. Okay?”

He doesn’t respond as she had expected, and instead begins to shake and softly gasp for air as his sinuses clog, wherein it becomes harder to breathe since he cannot force himself to relax. 

What really crosses the line from simplistic well-paid staff to genuinely filial companion is when Qian sees the reaction he is beginning to exude, and instead of dismissing it or falling confused, she reaches for his handbag and hands him his anxiety medication, a bottle of water, and says, “You didn’t take your pills today? You can’t do that - come on, take one.” 

It’s not something he would have expected from someone who was paid to care about him, something so wholly righteous and selfless that it doesn’t qualify as farce. To have someone care about him, genuinely worry about him to the extent of those close to him, makes his lips tremble as another sob overcomes him, and he buries himself warmly in Qian’s bosom as he rides it out.

“I’m so sorry,” she reassures him tenderly. “You’re such a beautiful young lady, and you work so hard here. You don’t deserve this pain, believe me. If I could take it away, I would in a heartbeat just so you could go back to your joyous, day-brightening self.”

He couldn’t agree more, in all honesty, because it fucking sucks not being able to express your true self because you’re preoccupied with something else. Immediately after work ends, Zitao knows he has to practically fly home and head to the hospital after. If something life-altering were to happen, he would never forgive himself it happened when he wasn’t there. 

Qian’s constant appraisal and gentle complimenting do help to calm him down significantly, reducing him to trembling sniffles as he’s finally cried out all of the tears he could possibly produce. It’s never going to make him perfect again, for he’s not sure he could return to being perfectly okay, but it helps. Qian set aside everything that she had been doing to take care of him solely, rather than help the photographer clean up the shoot, and it helps. 

When he finally thinks he’s calmed down enough to swallow, he takes the pill from her and downs it with a rush of water, for he’d been so distant these past few weeks that he’s begun to slip on his daily-routined medication. Most mornings, he forgets to take it until it’s nearly an hour later when he remembers that he has it with him. Some days, however, he forgoes it entirely and then has to suffer the after-effects of nervousness and worry due to his own forgetfulness. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaks out after taking his medication, for he’s just made an unnecessary scene and caused an outburst for no reason. 

“Don’t be,” she coaxes, rubbing his back comfortingly. “I’m going to call Minseo in, is that alright? I’m gonna have her stay with you because I have a project to help attend in Studio E and I can’t exactly take you with me, but I don’t want to leave you all alone, either.”

He sniffles, then, because he would really rather not have Qian leave him in a situation such as this; however, realistically, he is aware that a request such as that is not possible, for this is a job within which, they both have responsibilities. Being that Minseo is merely a Recreation model, she likely has much more free time than he, for the Recreation girls very rarely find themselves called upon for actual modeling work. Minseo, along with several other former Marketing girls, does have the privileges of being featured more often than those who do not have the prowess to participate in the same form. “Okay,” he mumbles in a thick tone, for at least it is Minseo who will keep him company rather than a stranger.

“Don’t worry, she won’t be long,” Qian smiles gently as she leans slightly back to retrieve her work cell phone from her back pocket, “alright? You just stay right here, and I’ll get her in.”

When she finally pulls away to make the phone call near the studio doors and away from the personal space of the photographers and the other models, the ache bitterly returns and Zitao’s eyes water once more, for the lack of protective and loving arms around him only reminds him how alone he truly is, and with a shattered countenance and a weakened stance, he begins to quietly cry into his folded arms. His tears wet the creamy skin upon his forearms, skin that had once been pressed to his mother’s bosom when she would cradle him, cuddling him close when he was a younger babe. Cold tears which no longer present heat, tears that had once registered as warm upon her neck, upon her cheek, skin that he may never be able to feel the bleeding warmth of ever again. 

It crosses his mind, then, that if this is truly the end, then what, exactly, is the point of continuing to work here? He had applied here and had struggled here only under the assumption that this was what was best for her, that the money would save everything. Now, with nearly a hundred and sixty-thousand dollars poured into her billings, he struggles to come to terms with the knowledge that it was all in vain and that there was nothing he could have done in the first place. 

Who is going to pick up the pieces of himself at the end of the day and remind him that life goes on? Who is going to remind him that everything will be okay? 

He must have lost track of the time in his monologue, because Qian is no longer at the doors as they creak when they abruptly open, practically having been shoved open, and when Minseo’s arms and long hair envelop him familiarly where she coos in his ear, it both helps as well as simultaneously stings all over again.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Aware that he likely has not been eating due to the stress of losing his mom, Minseo not only escorts him to the cafeteria with the promise of sharing a meal with him but, additionally, pays for his share. 

Not having much of an appetite, Zitao gives her no guidance toward what to buy him, but when she places a plastic-topped container of salted porridge in front of him, he can’t find it in himself to turn it away. “Please eat something, Yingtao,” she asks, quietly begs, and Zitao hates to know that he is worrying those around him, though, in moments like this, it’s also hard to force himself to do something that he doesn’t want to do. 

It’s pure work to swallow the spoonfuls he feeds himself but he manages, weakly meager and lithe as Minseo watches him in worry. He eats for her, feeds himself for the simplistic pleasure she gets out of knowing that he is fed and is no longer starving. After all of the crying, his head aches and his eyes burn, but having a nice, hot meal settling in the low of his stomach does feel quite nice, and he wouldn’t be surprised if soon enough, his body will demand a nap. “I’m sorry,” he croaks out quietly, stirring the porridge aimlessly. “I make everybody worry.”

“Yingtao, we just want you to be happy,” she sighs, resting her elbows on the table, “but you can’t starve yourself. It hurts a lot, I feel that, but you still need to eat. Okay?”

Sullenly, his frown deepens as he weakly glares at the translucent, viscous broth which coats his plastic spoon. “What’s the point?” He rhetorically questions in a low, foreboding tone. “I don’t have anything to live for anymore, so what’s the point of continuing to try?”

Shocked, Minseo quiets. “Yingtao, _stop it_ ,” she scolds bitterly, for the words truly frighten her.

“I have nothing to go back to,” he replies sharply, lips trembling as he stares into her softened eyes. “I have no family - no aunts, uncles, grandparents, _nothing_. My own father wants nothing to fucking do with me, and the only person in the world who cares about me enough to never have left me all this time is my one single best friend. I don’t have _anything_ , Minseo, _nothing._ I can’t afford my own apartment and someone else pays for it, so, therefore, it’s like it’s not even mine, and now I’m losing the very last thing I ever cared about…” 

“That doesn’t mean your life is a lost cause,” she exhales bitterly. “Look, things happen that we don’t like, and yeah, it really sucks and it hurts a lot sometimes, but life goes on, Yingtao. This may not be what you want to hear, but it’s what you _need_ to hear, and my job as your friend isn’t to let you continue this. You’re killing yourself, Yingtao, whether that’s what you want to hear or not. You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, you can’t concentrate - what do you want us to say?”

“Just say nothing!” He stresses hoarsely. “If you can’t figure out what to say, then just don’t say anything and just leave me alone.”

Nevertheless, she shakes her head as a single tear rolls down the model’s cheek. “I can’t do that, Yingtao,” she responds in a whisper. “I can’t let you do this to yourself.”

It hurts more than he normally would have presumed, for he had been trying for so long and had managed to keep everything at an even playing level for over two years, now. To have all of that ultimately come crashing down as if his efforts had been entirely in vain, makes him feel very much like a failure as if there was possibly more that could have been done. “I just want her back,” he whimpers softly, frowning where he smushes his cheek against the hard ridge of his carpal bones. “I’d give anything to have her wake up, I just…” 

Breathily, Minseo sighs. “I know Yingtao, I know, but I don’t think she would want you to be brooding away this way, would she? Wouldn’t your mother want you to put your best foot forward and be happy for the sake of fulfilling her emotional wishes for you? I may not know her, but I would like to think that she wouldn’t want you to be distraught this way, Yingtao.”

It’s quite unexpected, actually, to have someone speak about his mother so philosophically as if they know her, for Luhan is not necessarily the type to paraphrase her miraged emotions that way and rather has his own impression of her from personal experience. Minseo, as an entirely neutral outlier, has managed to somehow hit the nail on the head by reading him more thoroughly than a novel left open upon one’s desk and has managed to look directly through him as though he were made of fiberglass. “How do you know that?” He asks quietly, softly, the spoon slackening in his hands as the head begins to dip beneath the thick of his porridge. 

“I can see it in your eyes,” she tells him in a soothing coo, reaching up to tenderly stroke the length of his hair where it cascades down his back. “You love her so much, and it hurts to see all of the pain in your eyes, but I can also see that she knew this was going to happen, right? She knew this was coming, and she didn’t want to worry you by saying anything, did she?”

Then, it all clicks, and his lips begin to tremble as he rapidly puts the pieces together to solve the puzzle. Two days ago - no, two _nights_ ago, as a matter of fact, when he had been at the hospital, the air had felt different. There had been a differential aura floating around her, one which he couldn’t necessarily place, but it had felt odd to him, and what had she said to him? He had told her he would see her again yesterday, and she had not replied with the same, characteristically unlike her but Zitao had thought very little of it. Now realizing that _that_ had been the sign he had been waiting months upon years for, he realizes just how selfishly he had reacted and how if he hadn’t brushed the thought away and perhaps had told a nurse or a doctor, he could have saved her.

He could have _stopped_ this.

Foregoing feeding himself any longer, he begins to silently sob once more as he comes to terms with the fact that this is all, one-hundred-percent, his own fault. 

“No, no,” Minseo hushes him and cuddles him close as he allows it, _needing_ the familiar touch of another female in place of his mother’s. “Don’t cry, Yingtao, please. It’s not like you to cry. It’s going to be okay. We’re all here for you, okay? Don’t forget that.”

“It’s all my fault,” he croaks out into her shoulder, “it’s - it’s all…” 

Still, Minseo does not acquiesce. “It’s not, I promise you, it’s not. It’s her time, Yingtao, and I promise you that she is very thankful that you were able to give her an extra eight months to be with her. You have worked so hard for her, and I bet that you’ve made her so proud of you, Yingtao. It’s time to finally let her go.”

He shakes his head, for it still hurts far too much to allow it to sink into the pores of his flesh. There must be something else he can do, there must be another reason for this, there must be _something_. Why would fate bring everything crumbling down all of a sudden? He thought it was going well - he thought she was doing _fine_ , so what caused everything to screech to a halt like that only two nights ago? What was the catalyst for everything deteriorating and fizzling out into mere grains of sand to then slip between the cracks of his fingers? 

 _It’s finally time to let her go._ The words reverberate in his brain like thunder, clashing and boisterous in ominous notes of sound. He can’t - he can’t. How is he supposed to just… _let go_? 

“Hey,” Minseo quietly catches his attention as she mumbles into his hair, causing him to lift his dreary sorrows from her shoulder and blearily meet her gaze. “You are _not_ the cause of this - okay? You are not a monster, you are not to blame, and you are not responsible for whatever may happen to your mother. You fought hard for her and did everything you possibly could, but things happen, Yingtao, and that doesn’t mean it’s your fault. Sometimes, that’s life teaching you a lesson and telling you that you need to learn from it.”

With a little sniffle, Zitao blinks the tears away as his mother’s words float back into his subconscious mind. _When you find yourself out of options and unsure which fork in the road to take, look toward the sky. Find a different angle of life._

Find a different angle? What does that even mean?

“Come on,” she coaxes softly, and Zitao snaps back into his sanity to realize that he had forgotten all about the fact that he was having lunch with his coworker. “Eat up, okay? Then I’ll take you up to Mr. Wu and see if we can get you excused for the rest of the day.”

Having begun to spoon-feed himself once more, the utensil stills where it rests upon his tongue as he registers what she just said to him. “You would do that for me?” He asks after swallowing. Would she really go out of her way just to pick up his workload for the rest of the day, on top of hers? Is that even allowed?

“You need to be with her, Yingtao,” Minseo nods slowly, gently caressing his upper shoulder with her thumb. “You need to be there for her final moments, no matter what. This isn’t a distant cousin or a colleague that you did two shoots with - this is your _mom_ , and by God, if the president doesn’t see that and doesn’t excuse you for the rest of the day, I’m going to have an issue with this because this is very important to me.”

Blinking, Zitao slowly brings another spoonful of the porridge to his mouth without breaking eye contact. “What happened?” He asks in a calmer tone, the diverged topic having helped to calm his nerves as she brings his focus away from the cloying worry. 

Pressing her lips together in an expression reminiscent of that which one might make when shrugging, Minseo glances up at him as she lets out a little exhale.

“When I was six, my father died from pancreatic cancer, and I couldn’t get out of school that day to go see him to say my final goodbyes.”

And in that moment, when they are both hurting on two separate fields and are both leaking from every emotional orifice, Zitao realizes that being a male and being a female does not matter when it comes to what is inside you, for all humans bleed red from a heart that beats like the rest of its kind.

“I’m so sorry,” is what he offers, but she simply shrugs it off as though to show that she has now moved on, having been almost twenty years ago, and Zitao distantly wonders if he, too, will ever become desensitized to the pain of his mother’s eventual passing.

Somehow, he hopes that he won’t.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Mother, it’s me.”

Having been preoccupied with last week’s Chengdu show, he had not been able to visit the hospital much at all, since having to be away from the company for an entire half of a week had caused his personal workload to backflow and pile up, and having to stay late to finish all of it had given him practically no time at all to go visit his mother.

Dread settles in his chest as he raps his knuckles upon the white of the door frame, for it had been an unfortunately whopping six days since he had last stepped foot into her room, and the repercussions of such are always enough to pierce his heart with metaphorical knives. 

He had brought her a gift, this time, a pair of brand-new memory foam slippers for when she feels the desire to walk around in the activity den and not put too much strain on the aged soles of her feet.  She is always complaining that her soles ache and that she tires of walking far too quickly for that reason, so if he could change it and make her abler, then why would he not? 

When he enters the room, his mother is reclined in her cot as she quietly sifts through a novel that he had left within her care the last time he had visited. His mother always loved to read, but due to the deterioration in her health condition, she hadn’t been able to read nearly as much as she used to, and that fact upset him quite a lot. Rather than rushing over and pulling her delicately into his arms like a babe, he sets the slippers on her bedside nightstand and tugs at his necktie to loosen it as her eyes follow him shallowly.

Which is why when she gazes up at him and softly asks, “Are you a federal agent?” that the blow has significantly softened from how many times his existence has, unfortunately, dissolved from her recollection.

He forces a pained little smile, then, and seats himself in the chair beside her bed. “I’m your son,” he mutters to her as he reaches forth a hand to hold hers, fragile and thick-veined where the intravenous tube trails into her skin, “Yifan.”

Neutral, bright eyes blink at him as she tries to recognize him and make sense of the man sitting before her. “I have a son?” She asks quietly. “Oh, look at you - so _handsome_ , you are. Have you always been my son?”

Flattered, a weak grin settles onto his lips. “Yes, mother, I’ve always been your son,” he replies with a nod, his thumb brushing the swollen ridges of her veins. “I regularly come to see you several times a week, but I had a show to attend so I was out of town this week. That’s why you’ve forgotten who I am.”

“Impossible,” she scoffs. “I could never forget my own son.”

That’s really what stings the most, isn’t it? The fact that a mother’s love can never be broken until her brain disagrees, until her brain forcefully severs the connection between memory and reminiscence. A mother’s love would never fade away until her conscious body made it fade away, disrupting the channel between belief and fact. “I know you would never forget your child,” he assures her gently, “mother.”

“Tell me, Yifan - ” she starts, then, perking up very much akin to a child intrigued about toys. “Do I have any other children? Am I married?”

“No,” is what he tells her softly, exhaling as he watches his thumb curtain over her sallow skin where it has thinned out and her blue veins have risen to the surface to flourish color. “I am an only child, and father left us a long time ago when I was young.”

She nods, just a little bit, soaking up the information that she is lacking about her own life. His father’s whereabouts and the fractured memories of his departure have always been a rather tender subject for her, but as her recollection slowly began to sap, she no longer brought such occurrences up with pain attached. 

Truthfully, his mother wanted other kids; she wanted a daughter alongside him one younger than he so that he could become the girl’s protective older brother; however, what crossed the line for Yifan’s father and what coerced him into leaving them forever was when his mother attempted to become pregnant when Yifan was in preschool and had suffered a miscarriage which was then, unfortunately, blamed on her. Angry that she wouldn’t produce him a female, Yifan’s father left them that week and they never saw nor heard from him again. 

It wasn’t her fault, though. Miscarriage is one of the largest tragedies that uterine-abled people could suffer from, and it had taken years for his mother to thrive in marital therapy to help her cope with the death of her unborn child and, ultimately, Yifan’s unborn sister. Being only a late toddler, Yifan had not been old enough to grow attached memories, but he still aches for their cumulative loss, nonetheless. No matter what his father says, it wasn’t her fault.

“You wanted a daughter,” he tells her when the room has settled into slightly-awkward silence. “She would have been named Shuya.”

Dark, glassy eyes slide back over to him when he says that, then, intrigued at the mention of her having a baby girl. “Did I?” She whispers eagerly. “If I wanted one, though, then why did I not birth one?”

Despite never having been emotionally affected by the loss of his unborn sister, Yifan does not exactly prefer to talk about it, as it reminds him of the emotional pain his mother went through while she was learning to cope. “God told you that you were not ready to have another child,” he informs her, for rather than telling her the entire truth, he simply tells it slant. “So, therefore, you never birthed another child. He said that you should wait.”

Slowly, her gaze slides to the ceiling as though she were looking for God, himself before she gives a slow nod. “I understand,” she says, before tilting her head tiredly toward him against her pillow as she closes her novel and settles it onto the cot beside her, suddenly bored of it. “And what about you, Yifan?” She questions and the emphasis she places upon his name feels cloyingly strange. “Do you have any children? Any partners?”

Abruptly, his hand jerks slightly where it’s rested on top of hers, as he slowly glances up at her to meet her primitive gaze. His expression has turned pained, dark, nearly, as his own memories of holding his soon-to-be-wife in his arms race back into his mind like lightning, beautiful and lithe and femininely lovely as he would kiss her cheek and smell the flowers in her hair. She was special, unique in the colorful way in which she lived her life, spreading joy and beauty wherever she went. She was one-of-a-kind, and as he glances down at their engagement band which lays upon his right ring finger, he realizes that he will never be able to truly forget her no matter what. “I had a partner,” he monotones, “and you really liked her, mother. She really liked you.”

Truthfully, it was hard _not_ to like Mochou, and that’s often what made it so painful to talk about her passing. Everyone liked her, for her happiness was infectious and her personal care was extraordinary, gentle and hospitable in a way that Yifan, himself, had begun to doubt was possible any longer in humankind. Oftentimes, if any of the other marketing girls were struggling, Mochou would step in no matter the situation and would assist them to the best of her abilities, whether that be getting them to loosen up for posing, or perhaps helping them relax their mimetic muscles to aid them in being more expressive. This knowledge did serve to make him very happy for the time being, for nobody held any resentment against her and, therefore, didn’t create any, either, when the news broke. 

“You’re not with her anymore?” His mother asks quietly, her tone concerned. “I think a pretty lady would look quite nice with you.”

Bitterly, he presses his lips together in a tight line and glances away, should any tears form. “She passed away a while ago, mother. She… she was killed trying to come to visit us. I told you… a long time ago.”

Within a long pause, his mother’s hand raises from her bedspread, despite the tangling nuance of the intravenous cord, and she tangles it in his gelled hair as she pulls him into her, coaxing him to rest his head upon her bosom the way he always would. Although she likely has no memories of him doing such a thing, he could cry when she mutters soothing praises and reassurances into his hair as her heartbeat thrums comfortingly against his cheek. “I’m so sorry,” she tells him, and he knows that the entire world is sorry that such a situation befell him, but their sympathy oftentimes burns, for Mochou’s death was utterly and entirely his fault. 

Wasn’t it?

Sighing slowly, he lets himself relax against her, arched over awkwardly where he remains seated and yet rests his front upon her like a cushion. “Don’t be,” he replies blandly. “It… was an accident.”

“Nurse Sori talks about tragedies that have happened to her, sometimes, and do you know what she says about accidents?” She asks him carefully, planting little, pecking kisses against the crown of his dark, styled hair. “She says that accidents are never truly accidental, but are the unexpected twists and turns of fate as the higher powers above us, know it. She says that accidents are merely events that occur that we would not expect, methodically placed in our timelines to teach us valuable lessons. Losing such a woman must have been devastating to you, Yifan, and I can only hope that God had instilled, within you, palpable life lessons to take from such an ordeal.”

He scoffs slightly, for life has maintained an ugly habit of doing nothing but outright refusing his happiness. What kind of lesson could life possibly teach him by taking the very love of his life? What lesson could he possibly need to learn by having his mother in the hospital with moderate Alzheimer’s and stage-three kidney failure? What could he possibly need to figure out by falling for a woman too secretive to be with him, for she holds information that he is not allowed to know? 

“In due time,” she continues, “you will find yourself meeting the right person, and if fate finally agrees to it, you will find that your relationship will be flawed. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it likely is. Only relationships in which there are places where you two do not see eye to eye, and in which, you learn to compromise and mend those patches yourselves, will thrive and prosper.”

He frowns at that, sitting up from her bosom as he processes all that he’s been told. Is he… not compassionate enough? Surely his compassion is not what caused him to lose Mochou so abruptly and unexpectedly. 

After a long beat of thought-thickened silence, he finds himself swallowing around a cottony throat and internally battling his own inhibitions right before his own mother. “Mother,” he suddenly says. “I… I think I like someone.”

“Go after her,” is what she replies with without missing a single beat, and the response takes him by surprise. “You need to listen to your heart when you want something and do what feels right. If it feels wrong to ignore her and let her slip through your fingers, then chances are, you need to pull her right back in and claim her as yours because nothing lasts forever unless you make it last forever.”

He stares at her as the words stick to his skin and begin to soak into the layers, for she’s… right. Yifan has been playing this game of destiny far too passively and has been assuming that if he sits back and does nothing, everything will eventually fall into place, but how far along is eventually? When will he know when eventually has arrived? 

“I think,” he begins to say, having to lick his lips to dampen the path enough for the words to slide out, “that I want to get her a gift, but I don’t know what to get her. What would she like?”

“Yifan,” she says, “that is for you to decide, and you only. I don’t know this girl, _you_ do. You need to take the time to get to know her and figure out what it is that she likes because nobody else is going to have the answer to that unless you seek it yourself.”

He wouldn’t say he knows Yingtao in and out, but he certainly knows little tidbits about her. He knows that she enjoys modeling and that she enjoys being left alone, that she thrives when independent and solitary. He knows that she enjoys fine dining and that she has an interest in quiet activities, such as reading and viewing landscapes. He also knows that she struggles a lot, that she is mentally ill and that the softness of her heart aches every day for her own mother, a turf that Yifan had related to her on since the very first day when she had stumbled in her first audition. Yifan knew better than anybody else in the room how it felt to lose someone whom you had given your entire heart to, and he couldn’t imagine another person going through that same pain.

“I think I know,” he tells her, then, voice lilting toward the end. “Thank you, mother.”

“Surprise her,” his mother smiles, a crooked smile with two missing teeth, the gaps settled in the back, and slightly-wrinkled lips, both from the approach of old age. “Go to her when she expects it the least, and surprise her with the gift when she needs it the most. If you do that, she will fall for you in a _heartbeat_.”

As warmth fills his chest and tears fill the crevices of his eyes, he plants a tender little kiss upon his mother’s worry lines and mentally thanks every God above to have given him such a wonderful birth mother. “I love you, mother,” he tells her, and she gladly returns the sentiment, despite not having known who he was twenty minutes prior, but Yifan knows that her love for him will never die. She may forget that it exists, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“ _Are you sure you don’t wanna come out with me tonight? We can go down to Ruth’s Chris - you love steak, Tao._ ”

He frowns against the receiver, far too disheartened to even so much as step outside to get the mail. All he’s wanted to do all day was go see his mother and then burrow into his bedspread and never come out. After work, he had gone straight to the hospital to make sure everything was exactly the way he had seen it be yesterday, and both fortunately and unfortunately, his mother was in exactly the same state she had been all week - unconscious, unresponsive, and wired to every machine in the room. The sight of that many wires, a new vision, to him, made him bawl the very first time he laid eyes upon it. 

Now, at nearly nine-thirty at night, he sits at his kitchen island and threads a hand through his hair in stress, trying his hardest to not cry, because really, why _now_ of all times? “No thanks,” he replies weakly. “I don’t feel like leaving home.”

It’s the honest truth, and Zitao knows that Luhan isn’t the most accustomed to his honesty regarding his mental health. 

“ _Are you sure?_ ” Luhan double-checks over the phone, his voice calm on the other line. “ _Do you want me to bring you something home to eat? I can pick you up something - what would you like?_ ”

Biting his lip, Zitao glances sullenly down at the plate of reheated chicken curry that his best friend had helped him make just two nights ago, still warm from the pan and steaming away, freshly ready to be consumed, but Zitao doesn’t want it. It had been great two nights ago, spicy and flavorful in a way that he personally loved, but now that time has passed and the plot has thickened, he knows he won’t eat it.

“I already ate,” he replies, taking a second saddened glance back at the plate.

“ _Oh - okay_ ,” his best friend says. “ _Well, I’ll call you when I’m done eating, okay? I haven’t eaten yet, so I really should before hitting the hay for the night. Take care, okay?_ ”

Sighing soundlessly, he pushes the plate away and presses into his temples, hard, as his head begins to ache. “Yeah.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Oh - Mr. Wu.”

With heeled shoes clicking on the linoleum, Yifan turns with a pressed expression toward the source of the voice, his gaze softening just a smidge as he watches Mr. Kim approach him in haste, as though something urgent had occurred. Noting had been wrong with his mother - he had _just_ bid her farewell for the night, so what could be wrong? “Yes, Doctor Kim?” He asks formally, settling his hands behind his back idiosyncratically. 

“Good news - we have found a donor for your mother to undergo kidney replacement surgery,” Doctor Kim tells him with a well-composed smile. “I was actually supposed to tell you last week, but, well, you have been out of town for a week.”

“I apologize,” Yifan nods curtly. “Has the donor already been made aware of every nuance of the situation?”

Smiling, the doctor nods. “Absolutely - we spoke to her around two weeks ago about the possibility of the procedure, be it that she is a perfect match and would be able to spare her organs which have not already been marred with her illnesses. The donor will be Huang Weilian, down the hall.”

Then, the record in his mind scratches and halts. Yingtao’s _mother_ is going to be the kidney donor? Why hadn’t Yingtao mentioned this to him? Then again, does she even know? Considering it was her own mother up to be the donor, he assumes that she would, indeed, have been informed, but can he do that to her? He may not have any access to the updates on the girl’s mother’s condition, but he can only assume that the strain of such a surgery cannot possibly do any good to her already worn-out body. “Are you sure that it is safe to perform on her?” He questions flatly. “The woman has stage-four cancer already, Doctor Kim, and how much damage has the chemotherapy done to her? It cannot possibly be safe to perform such a procedure on her.”

The doctor doesn’t answer him right away. In fact, the doctor doesn’t answer him at all and instead presents to him the shadow of a smile, pained and forced. “It isn’t,” the doctor tells him softly, dejectedly, as if he _knows_ that she won’t make it through the surgery, “but we have already taken that into account with Weilian. She was the one who offered up the donation, rather than us having to pester her. Yes, you are correct, her condition is nowhere near pristine enough to handle such a surgery, for the woman, unfortunately, slipped into a coma several days ago and we have been unable to pull her out of it. She knew this was happening, Mr. Wu, and she wanted to make use of her body one last time if there was nothing she could do to save it.”

His expression falters rigidly at the news, for he had never known that Yingtao’s mother’s body had given out on her just days prior - had he not checked up on the girl to see how she was doing? No, that’s right, he had been busy with clearing up the backload of work from the Recreation department’s trip to Chengdu. Not only had he not enough time to check on his mother, but he had not enough time to check on Yingtao, either. 

He makes a mental note to check on her _first thing_ tomorrow morning to see how she is faring.

“Are you sure this is the best way to do this?” He asks in a lower tone. “Are you sure she is the only match?”

“Well, we could always place her on a waitlist, Mr. Wu,” the doctor tells him, “but the waitlist often stalls by up to twenty-four months. Knowing that you tend to want your mother to heal rapidly, I managed to find one single donor who could donate immediately, should you choose to do so. The surgery would be this Monday, at three o’clock.”

 _This Monday, at three o’clock_. He and Yingtao would _both_ have to take off of work for that, and he’s not sure if he could do that to the company - but, then again, does that mean that he could just make both Yingtao and his mother suffer? He couldn’t do that to the company, either, because he would have to stop work in order to be there for both of them. 

“See to it that Weilian’s daughter is given immediate mental health treatment on the day of the procedure,” he instructs carefully, “and you have a deal.”

Smiling, the doctor shakes his head and waves his hands in front of himself. “You won’t have to worry about anything, Mr. Wu, You won’t have to worry about anything, Mr. Wu, her daughter will easily be permitted into a mental health program, for the son is already a patient of ours. Remember - this Monday, at three o’clock.”

As his breath stutters in his chest when they depart, he’s not sure he could even forget the date of the surgery, now, if he tried to. He has no idea how to break the news to his beloved employee that, essentially, that is the date that her mother is going to officially die.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
The first thing the next morning, Qian informs him that the president wants to see him in his office.

Qian had already started the day unhappy with him, which only served to put him in a sour, depressive mood that he had made someone that he admired unhappy. He had not eaten dinner last night, nor had he eaten breakfast this morning aside from an iced coffee to wake himself up, and Qian had gotten very upset. He knows that she worries very much about him as though he were her daughter, but Zitao can’t seem to find it in himself to eat when there are much more important matters at hand. 

When he can’t eat alongside his mother, then what is the point of eating, at all?

As he leaves the studio with sullen, soaked eyes and numbed emotions, he finds himself almost cynical inside as he lets out a humorless laugh at how Qian had reacted. Why do they care about him? He is lying to all of them, is taking all of them for granted simply for the money that he makes. Why does anybody care if he stops eating and stops taking care of his body the way he used to? 

To him, nothing presently matters other than having his mother wake up and come back to him so that he may wrap his arms around her again and that she may do the same. 

He knocks, first, and enters after permission is given. At this very point, he’s not sure he could possibly count on two hands how many times he’s been called to the president’s quarters during his career, and he’s absolutely certain that it’s far more often than any other model. At first, Zitao had been certain that it was due to his troublemaking ways, but now, he’s not sure if it’s entirely due to the president wanting to be private with him, or a mixture of both. “You wanted to speak to me, sir?” He asks flatly, his hand lingering on the cool of the golden door handle. 

As suavely as ever, the president’s eyes meet his, brusque and a little bit cold, before he slowly stands from his desk. “Yes, I did,” he states as the office doors click back into place behind the model. As he strides around his desk in a timely manner, he finds himself entirely out of words to use, for he has very little to absolutely no idea what to say. Given the contextual hindrance of his recent discovery, what is he supposed to say? _Hey, sorry, but my mother needs a kidney from yours and the procedure will kill your mother, sorry about that_. Is that the best that he can come up with?

His countenance suddenly much more awkward than before, his steps halt as his eyes glaze over, entirely taken aback by the unfamiliar bleariness of, as a man with very extensive vocabulary, not seeming to have enough words to say. 

Perhaps having picked up on the fractured aura radiating off of the man, the model shifts his weight slightly, as though uncomfortable, before saying, “Did I… do something wrong?”

“No,” Yifan is quick to respond, his tones slightly clipped. He can’t exactly _blame_ the model for feeling anxious in situations such as this, for it’s certainly not unlike Yifan to call to him in private for a quick smooch during work hours. Perhaps that is what the model might be expecting, but Yifan knows that is not nearly the most important matter at hand, here. “How… how have you been feeling?”

Eyebrows furrowing in a suspicious dip, the model’s eyes narrow. “...Fine, I guess?”

The implication is properly telling that the girl thinks it is rhetoric, that she is being tricked; _come on_ , _Yifan_ , he thinks to himself as he precariously licks over his bottom lip and attempts to quell his racing heartbeat. _You know how to be romantic._

“It was not a trick question,” he responds in his comfortable, characteristically flat tone, internally breathing a sigh of relief that he had managed to build his composure back up so quickly. Truthfully, there are many things that he has been lacking in vilifying with her, especially her weight loss and her eating habits. Qian had been talking his ear off ever since the beginning of last week, _demanding_ that he give Yingtao a much broader and higher-calorie diet. “Have you been eating?” Is what he goes with, deciding that he can’t, despite the ache in his heart telling him to do what is right, break the news to her about her mother. He can’t do that to her, not yet, anyway.

Shiftily, eyes dart away from them as they transfix on the nearest room corner. “A little,” is the response he gets, yet it makes him shake his head, for he knows that it is not the truth.

“Not good enough,” he states calmly, “for you and I both know that you are not being entirely forthcoming with me, and I would prefer that you do tell me the truth so that I may step in and assist. I do have ears, you know, and Qian has been abusing them all week with how very poorly you have been taking care of yourself. Why are you not eating?”

Ah. That’s where the kicker really lies, and it causes Zitao’s body to roll through an elongated sigh as it’s now probably the umpteenth time he’s been asked about his diet and his related stress. He’s already discussed the fact that he just _forgets_ , that he’s far too preoccupied worrying about everybody else, from his best friend to his mother to Lanfen down the hall, that he doesn’t remember to worry about himself. When it comes time to remember himself, however, he finds himself appetite-less and disinterested in eating, and therefore, he doesn’t. It proves much simpler to simply not eat than to force himself and feel sick as a lasting result. So, not knowing how to truly respond to such a question, for not even he knows where the real truth lies, he casts his eyes to the ground and shies his face away.

Seeing that it may be a lost cause to talk between such a disconnect, he decides to be bold and reaches forth a hand to hold the model’s in his own, small and fragile against broad, warm skin, and a pink-rouged lip finds itself tucked beneath whitened teeth at the gentle contact. “Yingtao,” Yifan coaxes, then, and it tugs on the strings of his heart despite all of his inhibitions to remain cold and unwavering. “I want to help you, but I cannot read your mind - please, tell me?”

“Nothing is wrong,” the model shakes his head, not wanting to talk about it. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Wu, but I really need to be getting back to work.”

He attempts to leave, then, attempts to pull back and free his hand so that he may return to the studio - until Yifan’s hold tightens and keeps him in place, structurally sound to prevent him from leaving, as though a physical representation of the fact that he is not done speaking. “If you are going to malnourish yourself to the extent that it changes your physical appearance,” the president responds rigidly, a coarse thumb tracing the lines of the model’s wrist tendons, “then I am _required_ to be informed.”

Then, Zitao’s eyes sharpen just a little as he looks back at him. “And I already said that I don’t want to talk about it. Aren’t you not supposed to peer into our private lives? Isn’t that considered unprofessional and pretty creepy?”

“Do not argue with me, Yingtao,” his jaw tightens, and the model’s expression slackens a smidgen as he realizes that he is truly pushing buttons he probably shouldn’t. “I _know_ that you are starving yourself relentlessly and I _know_ that you have been doing your best to cover it up, but I am required to know about your welfare at all times whether you like it or not. Again, I request that you tell me at your own discretion, _why_ you are not eating.”

“Because I don’t _**want**_ to!” 

Briskly, the model yanks his hand back with such force that it brings surprise to Yifan’s own eyes and shock to his own heart, as everything finally snaps and the tears finally rush in and begin to ebb.

“Why can’t you just let me do what I want?” Zitao begins to cry, lips trembling and eyes slightly-reddened as he crumbles in the quiet of the president’s office. “So I haven’t been eating a lot, but why does that matter? I don’t matter here anyway, I never did and I probably never will because all of the Marketing girls _hate_ me for reasons I don’t even know, and I didn’t do anything to them! And I just can’t sleep and I just don’t want to eat, so why is that such an issue? Why can’t anybody just leave me _alone_?”

Then it’s out, and Yifan’s heart weeps in his chest for someone who is so close to him in physical proximity yet is _miles_ away emotionally, and for the very first time in a very long time, he has no idea what to do to fix it. 

“You are my employee,” he responds flatly, trying not to raise his tone so as to not elevate the situation accidentally, “and therefore, it is company protocol for me to make sure that you remain in a decent state of health.”

He expects an apology, actually, perhaps something soft and simple and full of tears and likely, even the gentlest of hugs, but all he gets is a cold, broken stare behind worn-out, bloodshot eyes and bitter tears. “So that’s all I am to you, huh?” Zitao responds with, and it’s immediate that Yifan realizes he had used exactly the _wrong_ choice of intricate words, before the model turns on his heel, covers his dampened face with a hand, and strides away. 

“No, not that,” he rushes forward, pulling the model back once more by the wrist. He’s fucking this all up, he’s doing this all wrong. “You are very cared about here, and I am not sure what I can do to prove that to you, but you _are._ Your friends all care about you, and the coordinators care about you. Are you still experiencing animosity from Jessica that I need to intervene regarding - ”

“But what about you?” Zitao asks softly, effectively cutting off the man’s strange ramble. Despite knowing he has many acquaintance-friends, very few of them genuinely touch his heart the way his friendship with Minseo does, or especially the way his relationship with the president does, but he still, despite every kiss they have shared, has no idea how the president feels nor what he wants from him.

Then again, Yifan doesn’t know, either.

And therefore, he remains entirely quiet as he forces the gears in his mind to circumnavigate his thoughts just a little bit quicker than their typical sluggish speed, but he knows that it isn’t good enough. When he is in a similarly tangled emotional web that the model also is, he knows that he will not be able to clarify any time soon just _what_ it is that he feels, nor how much of that something.

With a breathy, humorless chuckle, the model’s eyes grow glossy as another tear falls and trembling lips press into a shaky line. “Yeah, I thought so.”

This time, as the model practically storms out of the office and closes the glass doors behind herself, Yifan isn’t sure he even knows what to say to save himself and reverse the damage he continues to deal, and rather, lets out a strenuous sigh and rubs harshly at the divots of his temples. Why hadn’t he said something more heartfelt to remind her that she is well-cared about, especially in moments of insecurity? Why is he so inadvertently lackluster when it comes to romance and knowing exactly how to woo a woman? Why does everything have to be so complicated?

How did he get on with Mochou so well? Back then, it had felt as though it were simply second-nature to him to be alluring and loving, so what must have changed between then and now? Sure, the dinner that he and Yingtao had shared with the addition of the parking lot kiss had probably been the most his charms have gone in ten years, as something as trivial as a meal is orthodox enough for even the simplest of fellows to complete, but romance? It feels as though it were a college-level test that he had not studied for, one in which he had been forced to leave all of the answers blank due to the lack of knowledge he owns. How was it so easy for him to win Mochou’s heart, and why is it so hard for him to win Yingtao’s, then?

“Smooth,” he hears off to his side, and he doesn’t even need to glance over to know to whom that voice belongs, archetypically smooth and well-composed as Yifan’s heart prepares for war.

“You heard all of that,” he mumbles, “didn’t you?”

A brief little scoff is what he gets. “Yifan, I’m pretty sure the whole _floor_ heard all of that. I thought you were suaver than that, big man, what happened?”

Sighing, the man shakes his head and rubs tiredly at his eyelids. “I don’t know,” he expresses with exhaustion saturating his voice. “I just - she’s not eating, Yixing, and I don’t know how to help her or how to even ask _her_ about it without her getting angry, but I can’t just sit back and do nothing and let her continue to starve herself.”

“Then don’t ask her about it,” his secretary tells him blandly, and Yifan’s lips part as his eyebrows furrow downward. “If you need to step in to get her help urgently, then you shouldn’t be pissing away precious time by trying to fumble about for permission.”

“She is _fragile_ , Xing,” he growls out. “She is the kind of person who cannot take any sudden changes, for it triggers her anxiety and it causes her to have an episode, so that is why I was trying to get permission from her before I did anything rash and made her subsequently upset with me.”

A sigh. “Yifan, I wasn’t talking about getting emotional permission to get her medical treatment - I was referring to you changing your overall rules so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. It was _you_ who got her into this situation in the first place, because it was _you_ who implemented those diets into your corporeal regime and it was _you_ who had requested that she lower her calorie intake, in the first place. This is not about what you did to create the unfurling of this situation, but it is about what you can do to fix it.”

“What are you trying to say?” He asks bitterly, his tone foreboding.

Calmly, Secretary Zhang glances down at the floor for a brief moment before he strides over and rests his weight against the president’s desk, and places a comforting hand upon his shoulder, simply resting it there with no intention of moving it nor pushing his boundaries of affection any further. “We can’t fix what’s already been done, Yifan, but we can change the future to prevent it from happening again. I know you’re scared, Yifan, and I know you’re frightened that something bad is going to happen to her because of what happened to Mochou, but you need to fix this whether this girl _lets_ you, or not. It’s not up to her to save her own life, because you need to be that person who saves it for her to get her to see how much it really is worth.”

“How do you know what I feel?” He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as his heartbeat rabbits unevenly each time it thrums, and he has to glance up and away as tears threaten to fall. “I - I really tried not to get involved with this girl because of… what happened… but then it just happened and I said _fuck it_ because I couldn’t seem to force my feelings to fade away. Of course, I’m scared, I’m terrified that something I do will get this girl killed, because I ruin everything I touch, Xing, and I just don’t know what to do.”

It’s the most fragile the man has ever heard his boss’ voice sound, crackling around the edges as his knuckles flourish bright white where they grip the edge of the desk, as his chest minutely shudders as he forces back the tears over the pain of what he’s caused to happen.

“It’s not your fault,” Yixing offers. “Mochou’s passing... it’s not your fault. She left on her own and wanted to return on her own. She would have done anything for you, just so you could have been happy.”

When Yifan’s head turns back around so that the man may face him once more, there are tear tracks upon his cheeks, ribboning glossily toward the crevices of his nostrils beneath the glow of his bright halogen lighting. “I know.”

In the end, he decides, against everything within him telling him to put his best foot forward and be responsible and bold, that he cannot tell Yingtao about her mother. Isn’t that, with her best emotional interest at heart and with the desire to keep her at her happiest as much as possible, what a lover would do?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Deciding that he needs to learn to be much more upfront and ballsy with the moves he makes upon the checkerboard of their relationship, Yifan oversees that afternoon’s Studio D shoot which Yingtao is scheduled to attend, for, after all, he is providing the attire.

It’s not a large shoot, yet is not necessarily small, either, set in the pondside garden outside of Studio D just beyond the back doors. He had made sure that their landscaping interns had worked hard to manicure it into ravishing shape, watering the beardtongues until they arched toward the sky in pretty scarlet lines and tending to the lilies until they practically glowed with ivory pride. It had taken him a median of roughly six months to nurture the garden into such a handsome state, finally ready for his personal enjoyment and consumption as it flourishes in greens and stark hues of red and white. 

That being said, it was only _fitting_ to schedule a photo shoot in an enchantingly pretty garden with only his most enchantingly pretty models to boot, with Yingtao smack-dab at the top of the list. Quite frankly, he couldn’t care less if people talked, for it was Yingtao’s opinion of the journalist public that worried him much more than his own. That had been why he had suggested resignation, when Mochou had worked beneath him, for being a topic of popular conversation, had made her quite uncomfortable. If Yingtao, one day, expresses to him her discomfort of being involved in such a situation that creates vociferous talk, Yifan would interrupt it in a heartbeat. 

In the meantime, however, the sight of the model sat in the middle of the lush garden in clothes that Yifan had made with his own hands, rather than his seamstress’, truly warms his heart.

He’d asked Amber to help him create patterns for a hanfu, overlaying with a blood-rich, scarlet tunic peppered in beautifully embroidered blossoms in shades of flamingo-pink and shimmering gold, striking against their pastel, seafoam leaves that intertwine. The underlayers and the sash billow elegantly in muted rose-reds and unsaturated blushes where she sits, body entirely concealed as her hair curtains down her shoulders in tight, tempered waves, her skin dewy and painted in fresh peachy pinks and deep mahoganies. If he were being fairly honest, he would wholeheartedly pledge that she was absolutely breathtaking like this, and he finds himself unable to, even for a second, regret his decision to tailor such a garment. 

Despite the shoot’s success with her well-groomed poses and finely-tuned expressions of softened eyes and downward positioning, he can see the pain behind her gaze. She’s down to her very last wit, and is, at this point, only doing it to make it through. He can no longer pinpoint the fire in her gaze and the hunger in her soul to improve and to show her true potential, both of which have now been replaced with disdain and the knowledge that it is no longer worth trying. 

Knowing that there’s nothing that he can do to turn it around for her, it truly pains him to see her like this. 

“Mr. Wu,” the photographer inquires as his hands grip the sides of the camera where it dangles from his neck, “do you have any other ideas before we wrap it up?”

Yingtao happens to glance up at him as the photographer’s words hang in the air, balancing on wavelengths as her warm brown eyes meet his, awaiting instruction. Yifan knows that he needs not push her, but rather needs to relieve her so that she may prepare for the surgery next week. “No,” he states in a bold tone, “that will be all, please return the attire and clean up the equipment.”

Despite the overlying sullen tone that resonates throughout the garden, Yingtao cleanly follows command and publicly undresses, during which, Yifan politely averts his eyes as he turns discreetly on his heel so as to not surreptitiously watch her disrobe. Although desiring, her full consent is of utmost importance above everything else.

When she redresses and happens to have hung and repackaged the hanfu within its plastic case, and when she brings it forth to hand to him, her eyes are dull and cold as she says, “Here you go, sir.”

She does not deflate when in his close proximity, yet does not shy away, either, and it makes Yifan hopeful that they have made some progress involving Yingtao’s willingness to be more intimate with him. He wishes that they could progress things forward publicly and officially declare themselves as dating, but it’s simply not that easy, and Yifan doesn’t want her to get hurt. 

Which, when the model passes the hanger to him in order to take, reminds him just how precious of care she requires in times of weakness. “No,” he shakes his head as he solidly meets her eye, structured with a straightened spine as her eyes glimmer in the soft sunlight. “This is actually for you to keep - it is a gift.”

Briefly, her eyes seem to widen. “A… gift? For me?”

To only further help solidify her beliefs, he offers her a warm little grin of pressed, tight lips and a lukewarm stare, coupled with a curt nod. “I made it by hand,” he tells her. “Only once in a blue moon do I dip my hand into the couture over my seamstress, so think of it as extremely special that it was made specifically for you.”

It hadn’t been much trouble, really; what could have soaked up months at a time had been successfully condensed into a period of four weeks with only minimal hours each day to hunch over his machine at home. Amber had surreptitiously assisted in picking out the fabrics for him to use after a mutual agreement that red, as well as every shade within such a broad curtain, fit Yingtao the best. They had foregone the pink-reds and the orange-reds and had gone straight for the bloodier shades, as his fingers trailed along rows of oxblood and garnet coupled with red currant and bright ruby. It had to be perfect and had to be stunning, two things that Yingtao, in his eyes, embodied. 

“You made this?” The model asks him in a rising tone, then, soft as her eyes trailed back down onto the plastic-covered garment where she holds it, as though she were admiring a precious, irreplaceable jewel. “Wait - _you_ made this?”

“I did,” he confirms curtly. “I made it with you in mind. I hope that it suits your tastes, for I think it very well does, but it is your opinion which matters the most.”

Charmed, the girl’s eyes glimmer as she looks back up at him, smitten and taken entirely aback by the outright gentlemanly step he had taken forward. “Thank you…” she mumbles among the fog of awe, and all he can offer her is the encouraging shadow of a smile as she trails her nails along the plastic in admiration. “I really don’t know what to say, Mr. Wu, I…” 

As he watches her soak up the gesture that beheld her gift, pride blooms warmly in his chest as he finds himself proud that he had taken such a risky step, for he has never truly _confirmed_ these so-called deep feelings that everyone else swears she houses for him. This, which had come to mind as he sat in his mother’s hospital room and had trailed his thumb along her veined, frail hand, had been the very first time he had been excited to win over a woman’s heart. 

Boldly, he reaches forward to close the gap between him, a broad hand lying upon her frail shoulder, as he leans in to whisper, in a tone low enough for only the two of them to hear, into her ear, “Additionally, I would very much enjoy if you would join me for dinner tonight at my home immediately after work.”

Wide-eyed, Yingtao pulls back with the offer buzzing freshly in her ears. She has never so much as even seen the sight of his home, before, but how would she react? He can only hope that she will not think lowly of the property that he owns, nor that she will show distaste in his voice of furnishing. Then again, he sincerely hopes that she will not turn the offer down and will not refuse out of the simplicity of not having feelings for him, for Yifan knows that she does, that she has to. 

Surely she won’t say no.

As she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and runs her thumb over the smooth ridge of the hanger’s handle across her inner knuckles, she lets out a sigh and purses her curved lips. “Okay,” she whispers in response, and Yifan’s heart practically leaps. “I’ll come over.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Sit anywhere you like,” he instructs tenderly as he shucks off his suit jacket and drapes it across the couch corner. “The loveseats have been recently reupholstered, and the armchairs do recline. You are welcome to make yourself at home, at the expense that I do have to request that you not go snooping through my house.”

Zitao would nod and would soak up the understanding that he is to be on quite exquisite behavior in a stranger’s home, naturally, if he had not been too in shock to respond. 

He knows that Mr. Wu is quite likely a multimillionaire, the product of over ten years of extremely dedicated, strenuously hard work that likely warred a battered line between public and confidential, but somehow, Zitao had not fully anticipated the man living in something like this. 

It had looked extravagantly massive from the outside, quite literally a quart-sized mansion if not full-sized, but the inside has Zitao absolutely gobsmacked. Everything glimmers in an archangelic, polished ivory, ceilings to the glossed floors to the upholstered suede couches and the matching throw rugs, embroidered in regal oxblood. Despite his wealth, he owns electronics and decorative paintings like any other citizen, a flat-screen television perched up on the wall in his living space and a grand, wrap-around countertop that expands the kitchen spaciously in peppered granite. He owns no pets, nor houses any roommates, the building flooded in silence save for the soft, slight crackling of an electric fireplace beside his expansive bookshelves in dark, roasted chocolate, quite possibly the _only_ dark piece of furniture that he owns.

Zitao had never been intimidated by white, and quite frankly, before now, had never been afraid of white. He finds himself worried to even so much as place his bare, stocking-covered feet upon the flooring without marring its pristine cleanliness.

“Sir,” he finds himself asking as he stares, starstruck. “Is this really your home?”

It’s a silly question, it is, but it falls on attentive ears as Yifan suavely turns on his heel, one hand tucked into the pocket of his trousers, before he says, “Of course. I purchased it around twelve years ago; it cost me nearly two-million, but I would easily say that it was well worth it. Would you not agree?”

Truth be told, Zitao could not possibly agree _more_ , for he would have expected his boss to live in something like a penthouse, relatively-sized at the tender top of a glimmering highrise. He would have expected rugs and soft upholstery in deep, rich oxblood, homely and forgiving with stains. He would have expected, perhaps given the man’s career, an antique sewing machine in the back room that had been manufactured in the eighties in Shenzhen, coupled with fabric rolls lined against the wall as they billow upon the floor where they’ve slightly unraveled. He would have expected a room likely _filled_ with dress forms in glossy, ivory steel, decorated from head to toe in new pieces that he has yet to mark as official additions. Instead, the man lives in a relatively untouched _castle_ , it seems, feeling very much like a house that was on display rather than a house that had been purchased to be lived in. “It’s beautiful,” he croons softly, awkwardly clutching his handbag at his front as he gazes around. 

Kindly, the man’s expression softens. “Thank you,” he offers with a barely-there smile, more so in his eyes than his musculature, as he guides them over to the living area and welcomes himself into his own kitchen space. “Not many people have seen it - you likely understand just by looking, yes? I can’t bring many people over, or they will ruin my furniture. I have to be very picky.”

You don’t say, Zitao thinks to himself as his eyes scan over his surroundings. Even the paperweights shine in a freshly-dusted glow beneath the ceiling lights, tediously and meticulously spot-cleaned to ensure that everything was absolutely perfect. If he weren’t being too modest, Zitao would say that the man is actually quite the perfect husband to have, startlingly hygienic and quite the Prince Charming, at that. 

Then again, are there really many, if any, flaws within him? Sure, he’s got his bitterness to him and he tends to lash out, but each of those instances had been somewhat warranted, had they not? He had every right to snap at Zitao for touching the portrait of his late wife, had every right to call Zitao out on causing trouble with a six-year employee, and had every right to shout when Zitao’s ankle had fractured. He seems to strongly dislike altercations that would cause the people around him to get hurt in one way or another, and Zitao greatly appreciates that. 

It must come off as obvious that he was practically terrified to even so much as leave a fingerprint upon anything, when the man falls quiet before asking him, “Is everything alright?”

Not having expected to be talked to so abruptly, Zitao’s hands jerk back like he’s been burned. The man’s eyes are slightly calculative but are plenty warm, almost as though he’s toying with him. “I, uh,” he stammers, unsure of how exactly to say _yeah, wow, your house is absolutely fucking breathtaking and I’m notoriously messy and clumsy and I ruin everything I touch so, uh, how do I not touch anything because I’m impulsive and I want to please and thank you?_ “I’ve never seen such expensive things before…” 

Although a last-minute excuse, it is not a lie; the chandeliers upon the high ceilings are massive and absolutely sparkle in crystallized diamond-glass, the tables are glass-top with detailed, welded gold trim, likely pure gold, if he had to guess. Ceiling-to-floor windows glitter upon the city’s skyline, quite dark where the nighttime haze of blackness has begun to seep down upon the lights of humanity. Quite frankly, he’s worried that if he even so much as lays a finger on any of the glass, it will shatter beneath his very touch and that the man will fire him promptly for defamation of private property. 

“You haven’t?” Yifan asks him in a slightly strained voice, likely not being able to believe that Zitao has never seen wealth, before. “How could you have not? You do work for a rather wealthy company - do not tell me you’ve forgotten.”

Though, there is a flash of bitterness which crosses the model’s eyes as he glances shyly away, unsure of how to relate to a man of such prestige and economic success. “Back then,” he speaks softly, keeping his gaze down on the side table near his hip where a cordless telephone rests upon a charger dock, something that very much resembles a video game console with its largely technical, luminescent self, “I used to live with my parents in a run-down townhome. My mother purchased it for four-hundred and sixty dollars back in the eighties. It was a shitty little thing, but she managed to give it a little bit of tender love and care and managed to clean it up into a liveable space. For seventeen years, it was just me, her, and my father in that house until my mother was diagnosed, and my father took off the next morning and never returned.”

Softly, Yifan’s lips part with the shadows of tenderness across his features. “I’m so sorry,” he offers, leaning folded elbows upon the tall of his peppered island countertop.

“Don’t be,” Zitao presses his lips together as he shakes his head, braving the spirit to look back up at him and meet those enrapturing eyes once more. “After that, we had to sell the home and I now live in a cheap one-bedroom apartment that my best friend pays the rent for because I can’t afford it and never could. Even with how much money I make here, it still never goes to me or the apartment - it all goes to my mother, and… if I… if I suddenly lose her like this, then I’ll have to put the money toward…” 

Yifan doesn’t make him say it. He knows exactly what words are coming and why the model cuts off there, but he still doesn’t make him say it, because he wouldn’t like to say such a sentence, either. “Hey,” he offers gently, and the model’s expression relaxes as he meets his eyes. “You don’t have to say it. Have you not tried to work before this, though? Perhaps that would have given you a little bit of money to put toward the rent, no?”

Still, no matter how many times Zitao feels that their wavelengths are truly connecting as they begin to more deeply understand each other with each encounter, there are always moments where it threatens to sever entirely, and this might just be one of them. Off-put, his eyebrows tense downward. “Of course I have,” he states flatly, deadpanning. “What, did you think I just _didn’t_ work and instead brooded away about how I had no money for anything? I worked my _ass_ off, but that doesn’t mean it was ever enough because I’m a photography graduate, so I could only make minimum wage at nearly every job that was offered in my area. It’s never enough, and I’m lucky I even managed to have my best friend chip in to help pay for her chemotherapy.”

Quietly, Yifan’s discomfort becomes apparent across his features as he glances away, jaw stressing, as he realizes that he truly has no idea how to empathize with poverty, coming from a privileged standpoint where he even had childhood allowance if he did his chores and his homework every day. 

The business was inherited; sure, he built it from the very ground up as it had never been something profitable and had remained incongruous until he had dipped his hand into the works and had practically risen it from the dead, but it had been his father’s business, nonetheless. His father had attempted, being the operative word, to build himself an empire revolving around the plastic surgery district and the reversal of the damaging effects, but it didn’t get him very far without the Doctorate degree that he lacked. Forced to return to university to prosper toward the degree, his father had later passed away from stress-borne cardiac arrest and had never been able to complete the degree nor build his own wealthy empire. 

Which, in an expectant turn of events, had appointed Yifan as the new owner of his father’s shoddy business that lay in shambles. With no desire to continue a business revolving around cosmetic reversal surgeries, Yifan had aspired to begin his own fashion line after having been to many shows in his mid-to-late teen years and having seen models walk as they adorned the pieces. From there, the business practically exploded and he became a millionaire in mere hours.

Clearing his throat to cut through the awkwardness, Yifan forces himself to regain his composure and level out the social disconnect between the two of them, for he won’t let that ruin their dinner together. “I apologize,” he states with a broad hand upon his chest. “It’s… difficult for me to relate to economic struggles, since I had never struggled, nor have either of my parents. I hadn’t meant to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” Zitao sighs, not really wanting to talk about it.

“No, I’m pretty sure I did,” the man gives him an off-handish nod of the head. “I know you better than that, Yingtao.”

Being that he is _really_ not in the mood to talk about this, nor in the mood to argue, Zitao glances away and bites his tongue. “I don’t exactly like when people make assumptions about people in poverty, especially when they have no idea what it’s like to be dirt fucking poor. It’s not something that simply getting an extra job can help, because there are taxes, there are stipends, there are always things to pay and the more money you make, the higher those secondary payments become. Please don’t speak about poverty like you know how to fix it, because if it was that simple, we would have all fixed it a long time ago.”

That is true, and Yifan is very much aware that he has now spoken out of turn. He has to learn to not speak from his own privilege that other people may not be able to match, and he knows that. It’s very different relating to Yingtao than it is to other women that he had gotten somewhat close to, for they had all been quite wealthy and had been well-off with their salaries from the firm, but Yingtao doesn’t even so much as get to see that salary, and that hurts to think about. He can’t imagine making a hefty amount of money and still not being able to experience it nor the benefits that come with it. 

Still, he’s got a little more romance up his sleeve to use to try and piece this all carefully back together. “Well,” he offers as he stands smoothly from the countertop, and the model glances back up at him with slight expectancy in her eyes. “Now that you are no longer worrying about falling back into poverty and are, instead, standing in the comfort of my home, what would you like to eat? Absolutely anything you can think of - ask for it, and I will do my best to make it for you.”

Slightly wide-eyed, Zitao finds himself wordless. He’s still not become accustomed to being allowed to have choices, but it seems that no matter how many times he finds himself in Yifan’s private company, the man will _always_ give him the choice of what to eat as compared to in public when he is restricted to his company diet. 

“Do you have any sirloin?” He asks quietly, timidly, but he’s absolutely certain that the man’s ears have picked it up in the shallow quiet. “I… kind of want steak with mac…” 

With a not-quite-a-grin, Yifan gives him a curt nod and reaches forward to pat at the countertop, as though he were encouraging a pet to jump, before responding with, “I can only cook for you if you would please join me, and only then will I get started.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao learns a little bit more about the man of extravagant mystery as they quietly sit down to eat. 

He learns that Yifan’s first kiss had been rather embarrassing, wherein a girl with long hair and braces had kissed him on the playground at the tender age of twelve and their teeth had clashed, tooth bone meeting metal harshly and when he had gone to the bathroom afterward, Yifan had noticed that his bottom lip had bruised little nicks scattered across it from the impact her brackets had with his flesh. He learns that Yifan had actually briefly wanted to design Renaissance-stylized menswear, but after having how women carry themselves upon runways, had absolutely fallen in love with the female body and the ways in which it could be decorated and painted. 

He also, despite not having asked, learns upon taking his first bite of the garlic-buttered steak, that it’s - ... _bad_ , actually.

The chew gets stuck in his jaw as he tongues at the piece of beef in his mouth, unsure if he should continue eating something that is no longer medium-rare but is actually quite tough and overcooked, heavily bordering medium-well. The taste is rather decent, seasoned very well and quite flavorful, but the chew is tough as old boots. 

“What’s wrong?” Yifan asks with the nuance of anxiety in his voice, and Zitao immediately realizes that he cannot reveal to him what he truly thinks, for the look of sheer wariness on the man’s face, something he’s never seen before, absolutely threatens to break his heart. “You don’t like it?”

Panicked, Zitao immediately shakes his head, and midway through, realizes that his denial might come off the wrong way and might show his distaste in the meal he had been made. “No, it’s good,” he blurts out in a rush, “thank you.” 

Raising an eyebrow, the man’s expression doesn’t look any more convinced than it had five seconds ago. “Your facial expressions don’t lie, Yingtao,” he shakes his head in disdain, before holding out a napkin for the model to take. “Here, spit it out. I get it, it’s terrible.”

Truthfully, it’s not that good; although flavorful and seasoned well, the steak is chewy and tough and is overcooked, the mac quite runny and lacking a proper roux, but Yifan was still the one who made it. Quietly, Zitao sets his fork down and reaches out to gently curtain the man’s broad hand with the little space of his, and tenderly strokes over his knuckles with a soft thumb, because Yifan, of all people, made it for him despite not being the world’s best chef, and being that this is quite possibly the first - and likely the only - time he’s ever seen the man self-conscious, he can’t help but admit that he is truly an adorable person. “It’s really good,” he tells him with a gentle smile, and Yifan’s eyes soften as his walls crack and his demeanor slackens, having only needed the slightest bit of kind coercion and reassurance to melt in Zitao’s hands. “Thank you so much.”

Despite his rough edges, Yifan is soft and malleable inside, falling surreptitiously and innocently to the feet of women who charm him, his heart protected by a decade's worth of diligently-constructed walls, mountains high yet merely inches thick, easy to penetrate but difficult to break down. He is delicate deep down and is kind, but shelters all of those emotions in a protective blanket of intimidation and anger to keep his vulnerabilities hidden. 

“Eat all of it,” he coaxes, aware that it might have come out more demanding than he had anticipated but likely having gotten his message across, at the very least. No matter the quality of the meal, Zitao has every intention of eating as much as he can manage with the hope of cheering him up by watching a meal he made with his own hands, be enjoyed. 

As he eats, he doesn’t dare remove his fingers from the safe confines of Yifan’s palm, warm and soft and comforting in a way that he feels he’s been yearning to feel for a very long time.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Politely, Zitao helps him tidy up after dinner. There is not much to clean up, simply the pan on which the man had cooked the steaks and the pot in which he had crafted the mac, but Zitao is willing to help as much as he can, for the man wasted his hard-earned food on a model with an eating disorder who couldn’t finish it, despite the struggle to. 

He had wanted to finish it, very much, so, fueled by only the desire to please Yifan with the knowledge that someone had indulged in the food he cooked himself. Despite the poor quality, Zitao had wanted to make the best of it and prove to him that he was worth it no matter his imperfections, but halfway through, his throat had begun to reject it and he had found it nearly impossible to continue putting food into himself. 

Unfortunately, it really stung to see the dejection on the man’s face as Zitao hadn’t even met the three-quarter mark toward being almost finished. 

He had made sure to thank Yifan more than ever for the gesture to make up for it, hoping to squash whatever tension lingered between the two of them due to Zitao’s inability to eat sizable meals, including thanking him for even so much as passing dishes to him to be hand-dried. It would be far too rude as a guest to force his host to do absolutely everything and wait on him practically hand-and-foot, and Zitao has never been the pampered type.

“Are you normally this facetious?” Yifan asks him in a relatively flat tone as he puts away the clean plates. “I cooked a poor-quality meal for you, and all you are is smiles and sunshine.”

Coquettishly, Zitao’s cheeks flush as he hides a proud little grin behind the waves of his hair, preferring to not reveal that this is likely the happiest he’s felt in weeks. Despite all of the inhibitions he had held about coming over, and despite all of the worries that he would get himself into a situation that he would not be able to backpedal from, he had indulged and had allowed the man to shower him graciously in his affections, from allowing him to make him dinner to allowing him to pour him a glass of dark wine and even allowing him to toast him with his own glass.

Somehow, it feels very right for him to be in here, hip-to-hip with his own boss as they clean and sort the dishes, and Zitao has absolutely no complaints when the man settles his right hand on the small of the model’s back, simply setting it there to rest and letting the warmth from his palm bleed into Zitao’s skin. It’s comforting and is strangely intimate, and Zitao indulges once more as he lays his head on the man’s shoulder and continues to work.

When the dishwashing has finished, Zitao falls weak to the way the man pulls him gently close, hooking the model into him with an arm around his waist as his other hand delicately rests against the model’s cheek, simply holding him and admiring him as though he were an impeccably rare diamond beheld to the human eye. His gaze is compassionate and summery, beautiful to witness as they simply exist within each other’s personal space, as Yifan’s heartbeat mingles with his own and creates one unique thrum. 

It’s delicate moments such as these where Zitao wishes that time could simply stop and allow him to be gluttonous, wherein he would never be forced to stop. 

After what feels like an hour of basking in the man’s slightly-faded scent, spicy and elegant from that day’s cologne, Yifan pulls slightly away as he says, “I have something for you,” and it coerces Zitao into following him to the living room to see what it is that is being gifted to him.

With that thought, it is it another gift? Zitao is not one to really enjoy heavy gift reception, so he would sincerely hope that the man was not spoiling him rotten with his own hard-earned money. The hanfu was a breathtakingly sweet gesture, something that he made himself with his own sweat and personal frustrations, slaving over a machine as he stitched each layer into place and folded each sash into embroidered lines. 

It’s a little awkward having to wait for something to receive, though, because Zitao had been intending on leaving and heading back home right after dinner. Now that he is being given something, it begins to worry him that the man may make moves on him that are far too unwarranted and are far too risky for the position he is in right now.

When Yifan tells him to stay, Zitao does as he’s told as he watches the man head out of the spacious room and watches as he strides down the far hallway, possibly into a back room or a den, or maybe even an office, but Zitao isn’t sure. So, to cut the awkwardness of having to linger in somebody’s living room without knowing if he was allowed to touch absolutely anything, he faces his fears and seats himself on the largest loveseat, adjacent to the television and pleasantly draped in a beautifully-stitched pale lavender throw, latticed with white blossoms similar to those that had danced along the outermost layer of the hanfu that Yifan had made for him. 

It’s only when the man returns that Zitao perks up at the sound of his softened footsteps upon glossed flooring, and when he glances over to see his gift, he registers the sight of something large and rectangular in the man’s hands, facing his own chest so that Zitao may not see it yet, and it is draped in a white cloth as though, perhaps, for cover from dust. Yifan brings it to him carefully and only decides to let him take hold of it after he had sat down on the loveseat next to him, given they share a solid foot-and-a-half of personal space between them to not crowd Zitao unwillingly. 

“You were never meant to have this,” he tells him before Zitao can uncover the cloth and reveal what lies beneath, “but Qian and I spoke a few weeks ago regarding this, and we both decided that with everything that has been going on, you deserved to at least have this.”

Zitao’s eyes trail up to meet his in nervous anticipation, then, unsure of what it is that lies beneath the cover. Why would he not have been allowed to have it in the first place, if he were then going to be given it? That doesn’t make much sense to him.

Quietly, he pulls the sheet back.

It’s the print he had seen before Jessica had attacked him in the studio, the print wherein he had actually smiled, had actually _laughed_ and had actually allowed his professional facade to melt away for the sake of a photograph. It’s the print that Qian had shown trepidation toward shooting when they had been in the back room searching for storage. 

It’s the print in the red dress, the same one he had fallen in love with upon very first glance despite there only having been one size ever made. Lips parting as he struggles to find words to say, Zitao finds himself entirely unable as the sheet, bunched up between tight fingers, trembles in his grasp. 

“I had only ever manufactured one,” Yifan says calmly, lowly, beside him, and with glimmering eyes that find themselves unable to completely clear, Zitao realizes that he is filling in the space for him and is, likely, answering all of the pestering questions that remain unanswered. “It was never a dress to be sold on the market, you see, so, therefore, it had never been produced in multiples. I wanted something beautiful, something _enchanting_ , something that resembled that which a regal princess would wear without bringing too much of that picturesque, saccharinely-sweet, stereotypical pastel range to the dress. I wanted it to be unique and eye-catching, given the Swarovski detailing upon the breast where the brooch lies between the crevice of the cups.”

So he truly had wanted to create the perfect dress then, didn’t he? He wanted to create the picture-perfect monochromatic gown, in beautiful brushed satin to dull its shine without taking away from its pillowy, elegant texture. Now that he stares at it in more detail, he hadn’t noticed before that the dress seems to be somewhat dip-dyed, much richer and saturated and perhaps even darker toward the bottom half, bordering on a burgundy rather than a garnet, and slightly paler at the bust, reading almost a summery coral-red. Had the dress been that contrasting in person? He can’t quite remember. “It’s stunning,” Zitao comments quietly. “I mean… I fell in love with it pretty much the second I saw it in the back room…” 

Then, Yifan’s face twists, not in that of pain nor agony nor despair, but in that of sorrowful, melancholy reminiscing. “I had proposed to my wife while she wore that dress.”

Zitao’s hands shake so much at that moment that he nearly drops the print onto the glass coffee table, as tears gather at his waterlines when he glances up at his boss. That’s why there had only been one single dress - that had been his _wife’s_? 

Oh, fuck. That explains why Qian had been hesitant in letting him wear it to shoot in, and why the president had never truly commented on that shoot, in particular, the way he did dozens of others that Zitao had participated in. Positive or negative, the president always left feedback on their work, save for that one single shoot. Zitao had not heard even so much as a peep after the prints were released, and he additionally never saw them in the public, and while yes, it was for fun, it still stung to feel as though he were being ignored.

Now, he completely understands and sympathizes with why Yifan had not done anything to spread knowledge of that shoot until this very moment.

“She would have loved you, you know,” Yifan comments tenderly, and when the model glances back over, he notices a warm little smile glued to the man’s lips as he speaks, as though he were speaking about his favorite thing in the entire world. “She loved most everyone, so much so that my employees would get upset with her and accuse her of being simple-minded. Plus, she always got along with girls who spoke their minds rather than hid secrets, because she had no patience for secretive personalities. She really would have gotten along with you, very well, actually. Before she... left.”

It all proves far too emotional for Zitao to envision, the image of Yifan’s late wife having lunch across from Zitao - or, Yingtao, rather - and chatting about that day’s drama, from Sojin getting her zipper stuck to an altercation between two of the Recreation models, and the two of them laughing about it over tea and scones. It’s far too emotional an image, given that it is _Yifan’s wife_ of all people, and he finds himself tearing up against his will, a single tear dripping down his cheek. “Sir,” he croaks out softly, unable to get the words out. “Why didn’t you complain or put up a fight when I wore her dress? It’s not mine you should have… said something…” 

Without answering his question, Yifan takes the print from him gently and sets it down on the coffee table, having to rearrange the potted English ivy to make room for the large photograph. “Because,” he says, and upon shifting back forward, he tenderly slips his fingers beneath both of Zitao’s hands where they’re balled up against his lower thighs, and gracefully strokes over the backs of them with large, callous-worn thumbs, “that dress had always proven useful to me in times when I least expect it.”

Sniffling, Zitao finds himself unable to frown. “What do you mean?”

The man takes in a long inhale, as though preparing himself for a lengthy speech. “We were engaged in late autumn, a time in which the leaves on trees have all flourished scarlet-red and are beginning to die in preparation for the winter. Being that it would have been an autumn celebration, I wanted to make the dress, myself, in autumnal colors and give it to her on the day that I had proposed. I wanted everything to be special and memorable, so from that day on, that gown reminds me of the lengths I had gone to in order to win over the heart of the woman that I loved with my entire being.”

Silently, a bridge is mended between the two of them as Zitao brings up a hand in haste to wipe away the clammy tears that have coated his cheeks.

“And now,” Yifan continues in that same gentle tone, “it has proven useful in a different way for me.”

Oh. “What… what way might that be?”

“One that had been set up to occur for quite a while,” Yifan chuckles, and Zitao absolutely fawns over the pretty little sound, for very rarely is it that the man actually laughs. “When I saw these prints, did you know what my first reaction was? It might surprise you, for it was not to get mad at you, nor to throw you right out the front doors of the firm. It actually pulled on my heart, because I had tailored that gown with my wife in mind, something that was meant to suit her and her only. Then, you gave it your own unique shape and somehow, turned it into something new. It was no longer the dress that belonged solely to my wife but was now the dress that belonged to those who held the utmost physical beauty enough to be able to wear it, as those who were not as fair were not eligible. I didn’t get angry about the prints, because the dress will always belong to those who I love dearly, and, rightfully so, I could not take that privilege away from you. Besides, you always looked quite ravishing in red.”

Smitten, Zitao silently weeps as those tender, compassionate hands hold his own, and each piece of the puzzle begins to click into place. Is he, essentially, proposing something to him over the dress that he had handcrafted with a proposal in mind? Is that why Zitao had been instantaneously attracted to it and had felt too wrong to turn it down? Had it been calling out to him all this time to discover the secrets which it held? “What are you saying?” He asks quietly, his voice threatening to crack. 

“Be with me,” is how Yifan responds, tone gentle and patient, and Zitao’s heart lurches in his chest, attempting to pull him forward and close the gap between him but he manages to stay anchored right in his spot as his chest bleeds out hope. “It doesn’t have to be rushed - we can take our time with things and pace everything, keep everything quiet. It doesn’t have to extend into work hours if you would not prefer it to.”

Starstruck, Zitao cannot believe he had just abruptly, _finally_ , been asked to enter a relationship with him. This cannot possibly be real life, for Zitao feels as though if he were to pinch himself, he would wake up and sit upright in bed back in his apartment. Still, what is he supposed to say? How is he supposed to date somebody while still concealing his true identity?

Then again, how is he supposed to say no? Yifan needs this, after ten years of melancholic despair and self-hatred, he needs the warmth that comes from romance with another person. He needs to know that all is not lost in regards to his intimate life, and that hope exists for him out there. “Sir,” he shakes his head, trying not to break and give in. “I can’t, I…” 

“Yes, you can,” the man coaxes gently, bringing one of Zitao’s little hands up to his lips to tenderly kiss his knuckles. “It doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems - we can be entirely privatized, and nobody will ever know if we don’t let them find out.”

No, he can’t continue toying with him this way and watch as he falls far too deeply to be able to pick himself back up when Zitao has to, ultimately, be honest with him and break his heart. He can’t do that to Yifan - not when Yifan has already had his heart completely shredded once and has only very recently been able to tape all of the pieces back together. “I really can’t,” he expresses tearfully. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

He doesn’t get very far in standing from the loveseat, however, when Yifan latches onto his wrist and keeps him in place. The grip isn’t rough by any means, but it’s insistent enough to keep Zitao motionless in surprise, the seconds stretching on as the man’s dimmed eyes turn to him as he sinks back down onto the sofa. “What are you afraid of?” He asks in a tone as genuine and soft as the blue sky, entirely curious for answers to what he can possibly do. “Are you not comfortable… with me?”

“No, I am,” Zitao tries to reason. “I _am_ , it’s just…” 

“Do you dislike me?” Yifan questions quietly, having shrunk in demeanor to become something much smaller and more vulnerable than before, and the shadows of wariness prick Zitao’s skin like bee stings. “What can I do to make you feel more comfortable with me? What do I have to do?”

Sighing, Zitao has to train his eyes on the ceiling to force the tears to soak back into the crevices of his eye, for he needs to stop crying before his mascara runs and before he accidentally smudges it all over the white suede. “I don’t know,” he whines. “I just can’t, sir, I just… _can’t_.”

Swallowing, the man’s jaw goes rigid, then, as he trails his thumb over the bumps of the model’s knuckles once more. “I won’t let you get away again,” he speaks, mostly to himself out loud as a physical voice to his thoughts. “I won’t let you escape again. I need you to tell me that you don’t want me, that you don’t feel anything for me, and I will stop chasing you down. You need to tell me _exactly_ that, and only then will I leave you alone, permanently.”

He sniffles quietly to himself as the words sink in and begin to stick to his skin, for the president clearly knows the came that he is playing and he must know it well, for he often tends to read Zitao like a book. He knows that Zitao cannot force himself to say that which he does not believe is the truth, that he cannot hold a lie well. He, despite everything that the model has done to keep everything strictly professional on his own terms despite moments of gluttony and lust, likely knows that Zitao has fallen for him, as well. 

As the lack of words stretches on, Yifan begins to lean closer and flattens the delicate little hand which he holds against his chest, allowing it to feel the thrum of his rapid heartbeat. “Do you feel what you do to me?” He asks calmly. “Whenever I let myself get close to you, this happens and nothing I do seems to help in stopping it.” 

He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, then, as his cheeks flourish rosy, for Zitao constantly has the same exact issue and has had to excuse himself multiple times in the middle of photoshoots and events just to calm his pulse back down. 

“And I know, Yingtao,” Yifan mumbles as he releases the model’s hand to settle his palms upon Zitao’s lower back, coaxing him _barely_ forward, simply gifting him the hint of a request to move, “that you feel the same way, because I can feel your heartbeat in the underside of your wrists.”

Cheeks pinking hotly, Zitao’s lips part as his voice fails him once more, unable to construct anything to say. 

“So, if you _don’t_ like me at all,” the man mutters, leaning over to such an extent that it presses the model back into the cushion of the loveseat’s back, leaving Zitao with absolutely no escape unless he asks for it, “then, I suppose that you wouldn’t mind if I kissed you?”

Pulse stuttering, Zitao finds himself unable to mind that, actually. He would quite encourage that, actually, and might even prefer it. Holding his tongue, he shrinks back into the loveseat as his voice dies out in the base of his throat. 

Smirking at the lack of a reaction, the man gives him a gentle little smirk before closing the gap between him and meeting their lips, the soft touch of delicately primped lips upon Zitao’s stained ones in a quick, soft little peck. It’s over before he even knows it, and as they separate with only a lingering few centimeters of distance left between them, he finds his teeth sinking back into his lip in his nervousness. 

“Not ready to talk?” Yifan asks lowly before he leans back in and connects their lips once more. 

This time, it’s a full-on kiss comprised of parted lips and careful presses, leisurely coaxing Zitao to come and play with toothless little nibbles that cause the model’s mouth to widen with a little gasp, nearly breaking through his resistance to keep himself still. He can’t give in, he must not give in, no matter how much he desires this contact.

The breaking point, however, proves to be the intoxicatingly tender slide of the man’s palm down the round of his hip, gooseflesh raising across his skin at the featherlight strokes of experienced fingertips across barely-covered skin through the thin blouse, and his resolve finally snaps.

Game over.

He’s threaded hands into the man’s hair before he can even second guess himself and tugs, nearly clacking their teeth together as the kiss takes a nosedive for heated over affectionate, animalistic grunts coupled with hot, fervent swipes of tongues. Zitao falls back into the cushions, laid along the loveseat on his back with the throw pillows billowed beneath his hair and upper back.

There’s a split-second where Yifan pulls back from the kiss, then, a hand tugging at the tie around his neck as it trails onto Zitao’s heaving bosom below, and he asks in a raspy tone, “Still not willing to talk?”

Not wanting to hear another second of it, Zitao pulls him back in for seconds, meeting him halfway with libidinous eyes and hot, urgent breaths, hands grasping desperately at the man’s shoulders as Yifan settles comfortably between the model’s spread knees, all at once not being able to get close enough as well as not having enough room for two quite sizable men on the medium loveseat. He shudders as their tongues intertwine, as a filthy mewl crawls its way up his throat and reverberates in the man’s mouth. The vibrations of the sound cause Yifan to let out a satisfied groan as he captures the boy’s lower lip and tugs and Zitao falls absolutely weak when lips move their way from his mouth, downward.

Then it becomes an all-out battle of how many articles of clothing can possibly be removed, as Yifan’s mouth latches hotly onto the side of his neck which causes heat to gather in his loins, thighs rubbing together in an attempt to soothe it, as broad hands splay down his thighs and slide back upward on the inner ascent, dancing _dangerously_ closely to Zitao’s panty line, and when he tests the brave waters by fucking his hips down in a slow, filthy circle that drags shocked gasps from Zitao’s bitten lips, it’s the very first time that he realizes that this is _immensely_ wrong.

As though he had been splashed with ice-cold water, Zitao abruptly shoves him off to gain a leverage of several inches, stopping the kiss as he pants with blown pupils and swollen, reddened lips, as his cock throbs in interest where it’s trapped beneath his panties and the liner. It may be secure when flaccid, but if he were to get hard, he’s not sure these flimsy cotton underwear will be able to stop it from rising when it shouldn’t. “We have to stop,” he pants out, trying to catch his breath as his fingertips graze the deep sliver of Yifan’s exposed chest, warm and ever so slightly dampened with sweat. “We… we can’t do this.”

Then, the man’s eyebrows stress as the crease between them deepens, and Zitao’s heart tugs yearningly at the sight when the man says, “I… I thought it was okay…” 

It’s likely the first, if not one of the first, time that Yifan might have been rejected his sexual advances, and Zitao would normally sympathize and be compassionate, but this is far too dangerous. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles as the man sinks back onto his haunches, lips glossy where he had been indulging in Zitao’s neck, but there is abridgment in those eyes. Yifan is becoming distant again, dissociating upon realizing he’s hurt someone, and Zitao hates how it makes him feel inside. “I have to go.”

This time, Yifan makes no move to stop him as the model collects his belongings, adjusting his clothing as he slides his shoes on and finally closes the door behind himself, and Yifan’s flat falls into complete silence as he recounts just what he’s done wrong.

He could have sworn it would have been okay to do, so where had he gone wrong? Yingtao had been _hungry_ for such advances before, so why have things suddenly changed now? Why are her limits still so high despite them being in private?

As he sighs and runs a tense hand down his face, heart rabbiting in his chest as he recalls what they had nearly done on this very sofa just seconds before, he realizes that he never even got the confirmation to know if he could now be considered taken, rather than single, and he can only hope that the answer to that is a resounding _yes._

 

 

 

 

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	16. Chapter 16

“I need your help.”

His best friend acquiesces in the stretch of the conversation, his presence softening as Zitao’s demeanor wavers before him. Sure, he is no stranger to needing to extend a hand to dip into Zitao’s life to improve things, or to piece a situation back together monetarily, but he is not, in retrospect, used to Zitao _begging_. On the contrary, Zitao would always sooner suffer than bother another person with vindication. “What is it?” He finds himself asking as every ounce of joviality that had once soaked his voice thoroughly now having dried up, and the notion only serves to spell sour things for him. “What do you need?”

Quietly, Zitao idiosyncratically fiddles with his fingers to alleviate the weight of his underexposed request. “It’s just,” he begins to say, smushing his cheek against the ridge of his palm in disdain where he leans on the countertop, still dressed from work and dinner at the president’s house. After having returned home, Luhan had greeted him with a bowl of popcorn in one arm and the television remote in another, chirping in his ear about the movie he had been watching in his old, slightly-stained sweatpants and university sweatshirt. Having had far too much on his mind from the events which had just transpired only a half an hour ago, Zitao had wasted no time in threading his hands in his hair among the stress and letting his turmoil show. “I really don’t know what to do, and I need your advice with something.”

Blinking, Luhan languidly brings another piece of popcorn to his lips as he listens, for the boy’s words turn his gut slightly frigid and leave him feeling uneasy. “What did you do?” He presses skeptically, voice slightly stern. It is not that like Zitao to fuck up so badly that he nearly breaks down in his own kitchen, save for when he had screwed up at the interview and had received the news of his mother’s deterioration just days prior. Save for those two instances, Luhan cannot necessarily say that he is used to this kind of behavior, for it only tends to rear its ugly head when Zitao finds himself lost.

“I didn’t do anything,” Zitao assures him carefully, before letting out a shuddery sigh, “but that’s kind of my problem, in the first place.”

“You have to spit it out, you know,” his best friend tells him with another handful of popcorn being precariously dumped into his open, waiting mouth, “because I don’t read minds. That would be so _rad_ if I could, though - could you imagine that? God, I would be able to know what everyone on the street was thinking at one time.”

Zitao hasn’t the slightest of ideas how to sugarcoat what it is that he needs to say, and can only seem to piece together the bluntest of admissions which would only bring him shame as his friend babbles away into the open air, seemingly to himself over no one. It’s only several elongated seconds of perusing his thoughts regarding what it is he is about to say before he blurts out, “I think I’m in love.”

They are words that he would have expected his best friend to one day speak in happiness, voice richly saturated with joy and everlasting hope, but all he gets are dimmed, anguished eyes and a fine tremble in the boy’s chin that indicates that he was about to cry. Beneath the thoughtful haze that Zitao might be surreptitiously joyous about it, his voice is strained and downwardly lilting as he speaks, and several popped kernels fall out of Luhan’s palm delicately to the tiled floor as Zitao looks at him in despair.

“Oh no,” Luhan breathes out quietly, lips parting with a delicate sound. “Don’t tell me it’s who I think it is.”

Pouting, Zitao cannot even muster the power to even so much as sigh when his posture sinks as he says, “It’s who you think it is.”

Exasperatedly disbelieving, his best friend’s eyes roll as he cranes his head back, processing the sheer weight of the situation that Zitao has, unfortunately, fallen into. “I told you not to tell me,” he expresses with a sigh, the model’s eyes shying away in shame. “Tao, you _know_ you weren’t supposed to get involved with someone like him. This was supposed to be just a job.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Zitao glances up at him with watery eyes, as every last lifeline that he had wrapped around his shoulders to protect him from the evils of this world finally shred apart, the strings of balance falling between lithe fingers. It hadn’t been his intention for it to go this far - rather, he had tried to distance himself early on to prevent exactly this, to ensure that he wouldn’t have ended up where he is now. Nevertheless, his heart had been weak and Zitao hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to submerge himself in the pool of affection. “You think I’m not aware of how much I’ve completely fucked this up?”

“Well, why didn't you try to stop?” His best friend asks exasperatedly. “You continued to let it happen, Tao, and now look what’s happened.”

Sensitive and puny, Zitao whimpers as he slumps into his own arms, fighting the prevalent urge to cry. “I wanted to,” he tells him, “but I also didn’t want to. I made a mistake, and I just… I _like_ him, Han, and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to reverse the damage that’s been done.”

Silently, the model begins to cry his way through trembles and convulsions as the weight of his poor decisions comes crashing back down on him, rearing its proprietary ugliness as Zitao’s gut swirls frigidly and he finds himself wedged between a rock and a hard place. This reaction, however, speaks absolute volumes for Luhan, someone of far higher intimacy experience than his virginal best friend who had barely ever had time to even so much as look at boys, let alone kiss them and bloom relationships with them.

Zitao may be dim, he may be tenderhearted, and he may be very vexatious when arguing, but one thing he is not is a liar. He has never been one to fabricate the truth, regardless of the outcome whether benign or perhaps malicious, but given a profitable career that, for the first time, _forces_ him to lie, Luhan is able to, unfortunately, sympathize with exactly how and why Zitao got himself into this situation.

Nevertheless, his best friend needs to find the silver lining beneath the seraphic cloud that he rides upon day in and day out, delicately and peacefully drifting across the boundary of danger every way the wind blows. “You can’t,” his best friend tells him slowly with a weighted sigh, and the boy’s chin quivers in shame. “I’m sorry, Tao, but this isn’t a game of jacks any longer - you’re messing with someone’s heart, and there’s nothing that I can do to fix that.”

Whimpering, his fate becomes all too clear. “I know.”

In retrospect, a situation such as this would be very easy to correct, had the circumstances been even slightly different. If Zitao were not being paid heftily for biting his tongue and remaining clandestine, it would be much easier to simply confess and lay all of his cards out on the table for his boss to rifle through as he so pleased, but he can’t. If he were not fooling a heart of much scarring and of many an ache, it would be much simpler to be truthful and honest with the one that he loved, for true love is said to be strong enough to withstand even the thickest of barriers. If he were not spreading the image of a beautiful mirage across the bandwidth of a country far too conservative for his own comfort, it would have been okay to reveal himself. If the situation simply hadn’t been itself even in the slightest, it would have helped.

“Well,” Luhan’s shoulders practically deflate as he weighs what few options they have, struggling to piece together a concise plan of action. “At this point, it wouldn’t be possible for you to back out of this and just call it off without making a mess, so you really only have two options, and that’s to either be upfront and honest with him, or pray to whatever God is up there that he likes you enough to not give a shit that you lied to him.”

Zitao could scoff, really, because he knows that Yifan would never be okay with finding out he’s been lied to and, as a result therein, having his heart broken, and Zitao couldn’t possibly bring himself to that level of intentional emotional damage. Hasn’t Yifan been through enough? “He could never love me enough to not be angry,” the model shakes his head. “I’m gonna have to resign, aren’t I? And my mom is probably gonna die during the surgery next week, so it’s not like it matters, anyway.”

Life can always prove to be extremely unexpected and rather poorly-timed, but it becomes evident, then, that they couldn’t possibly have stumbled upon worse timing for everything to turn to shit the way it has now. “See if you can stick it out,” his best friend offers quietly, tiredly, “and see if you can reach a point in the relationship where he won’t wring your neck when you tell him since you can’t just erase the feelings you two already have for each other. If you’re gonna go this deep, you might as well commit to seeing the end.”

Sighing, the model lowers himself onto his arms as his chin presses into the meat of his forearm, for he knows that his best friend is right. There’s absolutely no turning back, nor is there any redemption to be found from how far along he’s allowed this to stretch, so the only thing Zitao can do now is to be painfully honest in one way or another - but how? More importantly, when?

“He will fire me,” Zitao professes sadly, although he knows that it will be for the best. He can’t lie to Yifan for much longer, for he can’t bear the thought of completely tearing his heart in half after it had taken him an entire decade to piece it back together, “but I know that I need to tell him.”

“See how much tighter you can manage to wrap him around your little finger,” the blonde offers as advice, “and hopefully, then, your gender will be completely arbitrary to him and he’ll just love you for you.”

Comfortingly, his best friend leans forward, then, and wraps sturdy arms around frail little shoulders, warm thumbs broadly caressing the juts of the boy’s upper clavicle arches through the thick of his sweater, and Zitao softly weeps into his own pale wrists as emptiness and hopelessness flood his body frigidly, shocking his veins and chilling his stomach in a sickly churn.

How angry would Yifan be if he knew that Zitao wasn’t, at all, who he said he was?

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping out of the elevator on the dreary edges of Thursday morning, as it dings at the third floor and grants Zitao permission to the familiarly marbled hallway of the marketing studios, fills him with dark, prickly dismay as he swallows around a cottony throat and tightens his grip on the manila folder, shoes clacking noisily on the polished flooring as he approaches his studio. Yifan’s request had played in his mind like a broken record from the very moment he said it, and Zitao really wishes that it hadn’t, for he hadn’t been able to forget how much he wanted to respond to it with _yes_.

Despite everything, Zitao would absolutely love to be able to get close to him in a relationship-y way, to be able to hold hands with him and kiss him softly and tell him that everything will be alright, with absolutely no strings weighing them down. Zitao would love to be able to wake up to him in the morning and see his mussed bedtime hair, unkempt in a way that nobody has ever seen him be before, a man of peak-perfect coif when in the company’s presence. All night, he had been thinking of how homely Yifan would be when he sheds his rough veneer and replaces it with the comfortability of solitude, finally able to be alone and to feel emotion when not economically required to hide.

The shoot this morning will go off without a hitch - Zitao knows that it will, as almost all of his shoots tend to do. By now, just barely creeping toward the edge of nine months beneath the president’s employment, it’s simply second nature to betroth the garments given to him and to stand in front of a camera before tens of lights and a handful of photographers and accompanying assistants. He no longer second-guesses his preferable angles nor the shadows cast by the juts and curvatures which his body makes, and with how blindly the president has followed him along the edge of his heel with no disparage to the gender distinction of the model’s body, Zitao no longer has to worry about anything.

That is until his heartbeat locks itself in the base of his throat when he enters the studio and realizes that the president is mere meters away, speaking with Qian and Joohyun regarding the model pedestalled in the center of the studio behind the lights. His presence must be rather strong, for it’s almost instantaneous that the president turns his head and locks eyes with him, despite the studio door having remained whisper-silent, his rigid expression softening rapidly as Zitao exists beautifully before him.

Being that the status of their relationship had never actually been finalized, they are still on strictly professional terms when in front of people. That being said, the look in Yifan’s eyes is beyond warm despite the hard press of his lips as he forces himself to remain tidy and intimidating, and Zitao completely understands as he ducks his head to shy his eyes away and heads to the vanities.

Should he tell him? Right here, in the lack of privacy that is their workspace - or should he, perhaps, wait until they’re alone, whether that be in the expanse of the president’s private quarters or the solitude of an unused hallway? Or, rather, should he keep quiet, continuing to pretend that this won’t all come to an inevitable close?

Yifan does not speak to him as Qian moves to slide the pointed handle of her comb along his follicles to part his hair, and it makes him both grateful for the lack of confrontation, as well as saddened by the sudden loneliness he feels. He knows what he wants, and he knows that it would make Yifan happy to get what he wants, but it’s too inappropriate of an idea to salvage. Then again, maybe Luhan was right about working to ensure that Yifan loves him to the degree where an extended little lie shouldn’t cut too deeply.

He knows that he should say _something._

It’s when Qian is blending out the arches of his eyeshadow in the glow of the mirror’s halogen border that the president strides over with suave, timely steps, hands courteously still at his sides as he begins to speak to Qian, beside him, about an upcoming show in Hangzhou, one that will encapsulate the entire Recreation department and the lesser-experienced lineage of the Marketing department, which does not include Zitao even remotely, as he lingers in the upper percentile. It’s when Qian begins to speak, leavening the conversation into a gendered division wherein they give each other ample room to speak, and more importantly, ample room for interruption.

In the mirror, Yifan swiftly nods his head as she tells him about Mr. Park’s newly-broken ring light and now she’s had Treasurer Im place an order for a new one, and Zitao’s heart rabbits wildly in his throat as the conversation begins to end, the president’s arms sleekly uncrossing as he thanks Qian for her partnership.

“Mr. Wu,” he interrupts before Yifan can leave, the conversation stuttering to a sudden halt as their voices fizzle away and the underlying repetitive thrum of Zitao’s heartbeat takes prevalence. The man’s eyes on him are neutral, warmth hidden behind a thickened corporeal facade. “About your - proposition…”

The moment begins to coil in palpable tension, his nerves pulling taut as everything in him screams to both let it out and say it, and additionally run away without looking back, but Zitao needs to remain determined. Confusion is malleable, to him, but heartbreak unto a withered, tortured soul overgrown with resolve is far too unmanageable.

If everything falls to pieces despite each bettering choice he’s decided to make, Zitao can only hope that Yifan will not be too angry with him when it comes down to it. “My answer is yes,” he responds after averting his eyes for a brief, nervous moment, and he can practically see the hairline fracture in Yifan’s composure as the words stick to the sheen of his expensively-tailored suit, as Zitao finally agrees to the one thing Yifan has been practically begging him for throughout the expanse of several months. Finally having reached a compromise between two yearning hearts, the aura surrounding the president begins to melt into something much more approachable and lenient, and it makes Zitao want to smile.

Despite the tender moment, Yifan’s composure remains rigid and stark as he clears his throat, abruptly, and curtly nods his head as he says, “I appreciate it, Miss Huang, thank you for considering this offer. If you could, when you are finished with this assignment, I would like to see you up in my office to discuss the deadlines.”

It could possibly make Zitao laugh if it weren’t so pertinently necessary to keep everything tightly locked up in the realm of secrecy, that it was even remotely possible to confuse Qian to an extent to where her face constricts and her eyebrows furrow as she is left out of the circle, once again. Still, Zitao cannot find it in himself to be bothered with it as he revels in the cloud of self-pride floating on his skin, as he’s finally taken the big step required to move toward fixing everything and finally made a decision for himself and his future.

Besides, having turned on swift heels after the long-awaited confirmation only further solidified the fact that nobody had seen the way Yifan’s smile broke through as he turned away, sheltered behind closed doors.

As Qian shakes it off and resumes applying wax to his eyebrows, Zitao finds himself unable to stop the grin that spreads across his moisturized lips in the vanity chair as another worry finally melts away, one less ounce of stress to hold upon weathered shoulders. _Finally_.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Despite now technically being able to label himself as _in a relationship_ , Zitao still finds himself just as nervous as before to step into the president’s private quarters, alone. He knows that Yifan prides and equally cherishes his work very much, that his worth ethic far surpasses that of Zitao’s own, but he also would not put it past the man to attempt to have a quickie in the office which would, ultimately, get Zitao fired on fraudulent charges.

Still, it does well to warm his heart as Yifan greets him with a warmed grin from his desk and a crinkly, white plastic bag looped over his broad fingers as he sets it down and says, “I bought you something to eat for breakfast.”

It’s incongruously sweet and unusually tender a move, not necessarily in the action but rather in the emotion, as Yifan never usually acts prideful toward generosity. For the president to humbly enact such a selfless act without the iteration that it was simply workman protocol, paints an extremely vivid picture of the man’s heart for Zitao to admire and bask in, and it makes him weak at the knees to regard so tenderly.

However, Zitao knows that eating and trying to finish a meal, above all, has been all but possible these past few weeks, and he very well knows that Yifan may have wasted his money on a meal that he will not actually be able to indulge in, though the compassion outlining the thought still gently remains.

When he seats himself at the rolling chair positioned beside the president’s desk and watches as Yifan reaches into the plastic bag to procure whatever he had purchased likely only minutes prior, the president begins to speak to him by saying, “I apologize if you were feeling pressured,” and with a soft, insecure glaze, warm brown eyes meet his as the man’s hands linger quietly in the bag, “but I really appreciate and thank you for saying yes.”

He blinks, then, and shakes his head, for it’s not like Zitao _doesn’t_ like him. Rather, it’s simply that Zitao constantly struggles with deciding whether it’s safer to say that he doesn’t like him, or if it’s safer to say that he does. Lovingly, he reaches for a broad, soft hand and gently swipes his thumb across the meaty flesh of the man’s palm as he says, “I’m just happy that you can be happy.”

The response causes Yifan’s countenance to jolt, slightly, in surprise, before it begins to crumble and a medley of contentedness and admiration wash across his features. He tenderly accepts the gesture, giving the model’s little hand a squeeze as his own practically dwarfs the size of it. “Can I kiss you?” He asks softly, slightly out of character as Yifan is not normally one to melt like putty in a work environment.

Still, Zitao is not one to turn him down, and fully consents to the soft press of warm, freshly-moisturized lips against his own over the edge of the desk, somehow discreetly special enough to shadow a teenage kiss in-between classes.

Yifan is rather tender with him as he slides the items in front of the model for appreciation - from the commissary, a breakfast sandwich with a scrambled egg-white and melted cheese, piled above with what looks like roast beef, and an accompanying milk tea in a plastic take-out cup, a straw stuck through the thin cellophane lid to prevent spilling. “You seemed to like meats and cheeses at dinner,” the man tells him softly as he unwraps the sandwich for him, not sparing even a second of strain when the model needs to be treated as though made of glass, delicate and at-risk, “so I thought you would enjoy a sandwich this morning.”

Softly, Zitao grins at him, his rouge pinking beneath the lighting, and he takes a thankful sip of the milk tea as he glances down at the meal he’s been given. It smells beautiful, rich and striking with the pungently sharp odor of cheese mixed with the warm undertone of the meat, but Zitao knows that he won’t eat it. Likely, it’s quite good, but he knows that his body won’t want it, regardless.

The lack of action, however, must catch onto Yifan’s subconscious, for his head cocks downward as his hands fold upon his desk before he questions, gently, “Is everything okay? You are not… touching your food.”

It’s not exactly simple to say _yeah, everything is fine, I just can’t eat or I’ll probably throw it right back up_ , but it is much simpler to say nothing and, rather, avert his eyes to avoid the question. Sure, Yifan can be quite compassionate and caring when he wants to be, but he and Zitao cannot relate to each other on very many fields at all; when he had previously expressed his economic distress regarding the lack of control he has over his mother’s fate due to their lack of insurance coverage, Yifan hadn’t been able to relate and had portrayed quite the ableist reaction, as many people who have not previously dipped their toes into poverty tend to. Correspondingly, he had seen the visual struggle on the man’s defined features when Zitao had confessed to being quite mentally ill, as he, likely, had never fallen in love with someone whose brain struggles to cooperate.

Rather than saying that he is simply not hungry, Zitao wants to please him to the ends of the earth and wants to make him happy, so he leaves room for an answer as he reaches forward, then, and brings the sandwich to his mouth. Not once, as he takes a bite and begins to chew it thoughtfully, do Yifan’s eyes leave him.

That is until Zitao reaches the point where swallowing the mouthful feels like attempting to ingest broken glass, requiring monumental effort to work it down past the reflexive spasming contractions of his cricopharyngeal muscles. He manages, just barely, and the distress outlining Yifan’s expression deepens the crease between his eyebrows.

When Zitao attempts the second bite, working it from cheek to cheek as he waits for his throat to slacken, the warm expanse of Yifan’s palm falls down upon his upper back, stroking gently in warm little swipes of encouragement for Zitao to finish his meal. “Take your time,” Yifan iterates carefully, eyes hyperfocused on the sight, as a single strand of melted cheese glues itself to the model’s bottom lip when he pulls the sandwich away and, thereafter, grunts in surprise and begins to look around for a napkin. “Here, I’ve got it,” he states as he reaches for a desktop tissue and wraps it around his index finger before carefully wiping at the model’s stained lips.

With the man’s soft and uncharacteristic encouragement, it makes it a little bit easier to manage to eat. It’s certainly not a cure by any means, and Zitao is extremely aware that he needs to seek medical treatment very soon for the disorder, but it helps. It helps to calm his nerves that pull his muscles taut to the point of restriction, wherein they allow nothing past and offer no juxtaposed give.

After merely several bites, however, Zitao feels as though he needs to take a break, exhausted in a newly-strenuous way as he sighs and settles back into the chair as his throat contracts, clenching sickeningly in a way bordering on refluxed nausea, his stomach beginning to churn as he quietly fidgets. “I’m sorry,” he starts weakly, as the president’s eyes stare down at the forgotten sandwich in self-disappointment as if there were something he could have possibly done to assist the model with being able to eat. “I - I’ll try again, just… give me a minute.”

Quietly, Yifan sighs and glances dejectedly away, forcing himself to be compassionate despite his lack of empathy, as he has never, personally, struggled with an eating disorder and, therefore, he is very aware that he could not possibly disregard his privilege to step into a position wherein he could give an opinion. “Is this… normal?” He asks, hoping to be able to figure out how to glance into the model’s tattered world in hope of gaining useful insight. Wordlessly, Zitao nods, his fingers toying with the vinyl edge of the rolling desk chair he sits in. The man exhales slowly, then, giving a timely nod as he begins to piece together the tendrils of consideration. “I’m sorry,” he expresses gently. “Please, take all the time that you need - I’m in no rush. How… how is your mother doing?”

One of the model’s eyebrows cocks upward, then, the question taking him slightly by surprise as he meets his new boyfriend’s eyes. “She’s dying,” he responds monotonously, “and they’re not expecting her to really wake up, but she’s stable.”

That’s at least somewhat good to hear, considering Yifan knows things that he wishes he didn’t, especially considering it closely regards the woman’s impending death. “Is that why you’ve been unable to eat?” He tries carefully to keep the question as impartial as possible. “Is it the stress or the panic that’s making it hard?”

“Both,” Zitao sighs, tears gathering at his waterlines as he glances down at the sandwich sat atop its wrapper on the man’s desk. He really wishes that he could eat more of it, that he could put Yifan’s money to good use. “At first I was just… too distracted to eat, and I would forget, and then by the time I looked at the time, it had been, sometimes, eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours, and on that I had gone without eating. Now, it’s almost impossible for me to even get anything down, sometimes.”

The model hadn’t intended to cry, sniffling softly as Yifan swiftly passes him a tissue for his tears, but it can be so overwhelming, sometimes, to know that you, yourself, are dying. “Please go get help,” Yifan suddenly begs him in far too quiet of a voice, darkened eyes shimmering with tears beneath the ceiling lights and it pulls hard on Zitao’s heart, as something tells him the man never begs to the point of upset. “I will fund it - the treatments, the overseeing, the medications, everything you could need, just as long as you get help. Please.”

Zitao’s lips part in a mild little slit, for it dawns on him that Yifan really can’t afford to be responsible for another death in any way, shape, or form. Not only is his mother in desperate need of surgery that will ultimately save her life, but he’s now dancing along the tightrope of losing the love of his life a second time, certainly in more ways than one. It’s rare that Yifan sheds his rough demeanor so thoroughly, but Zitao knows that it’s the genuine shadow of the finest crevices of his heart, a place which no one has managed to reach.

“I will,” he reassures the president gently, “just not right now.”

“No, it has to be right now,” Yifan presses sternly with eyebrows drawn downward, concern etched into every feature on his face as he swiftly stands from his desk chair. “How do you know any of us will live to see another tomorrow? How do you know you won’t turn into bed tonight and starve to death before the apex of the sleep, self-convinced that you have time to piss away before it’s _too late_?”

The man’s voice lingers on the breadth of cracking for a millisecond as he speaks, and Zitao’s heart lurches in yearning to comfort him. He’s right - his own rules, built miles-high and progressively thickened with intimidation over the past decade had chipped away at the mental health of dozens, likely _hundreds_ , of his own models, and he had turned away blind eyes each and every time. Now, he’s finally being forced to reap exactly what he sowed and, thereafter, partake in dealing with the consequences.

Falling into silence, Zitao glances away as his waterlines begin to glisten, for the man is right. He’s killing himself, and he’s not even attempting to stop it despite the knowledge that he should remain here to be Yifan’s rock and to pick up the pieces after his mother’s passing, but it’s difficult. The thought of never being able to see Yifan again, simply due to something he is causing to happen, cuts very deeply, and tears spring to his eyes as his throat begins to tighten.

Glancing up, Yifan’s expression slackens, for he hadn’t expected that reaction, out of any. “No, please don’t cry,” he asks gently, as he reaches for a tissue to hand it off to salvage the model’s makeup. Nevertheless, Zitao persists with shaking his head, casting his eyes toward the sky for the tears to soak back into the corners.

Yifan is suffering. Despite all that he does to strengthen his intimacy threshold and welcome in a new partner, the roughened aspects of his lasting trauma still manage to peek through the cracks, rendering him helpless and holding him back. Despite the constant reassurance that he has done no wrong, Yifan’s mentality does not improve and his anxieties choose to linger.

“I’m not her, you know,” Zitao coos just above the hiss of a whisper, and the man’s brows tense inward in surprise. “I know you’re scared and I know you’re traumatized from losing your wife, but I’m still right here, and for the time being, you still have me.”

“ _Yingtao_ ,” the president warns in a roughened voice, tone rigid in a way that it hadn’t been, in a way that indicates that Zitao is in imminent verbal danger. A hand raises to speak, clenching in mid-air, as the man’s demeanor rapidly oscillates with each thrum of his heartbeat. The model knows that it was absolutely an inappropriate topic to bring up, but it holds importance in this scenario and, therefore, Zitao felt inclined to bring the topic to fruition. “Look - we are not going to talk about this right now, alright? I have more pressing matters to attend to, and you are treading on _far_ too thin of ice for social comfort.”

Sighing, the model can’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m just trying to help,” he exhales, eyes glistening as his demeanor begins to sink.

“Yeah, well, stop trying,” Yifan spits at him, shockingly bitter and abrasive enough in tone that it takes the model off guard, causing his heartbeat to stutter as his expression tenses in hurt. “I am too preoccupied with finding a way to get you to eat, and because of that, I am not in the mood to converse about anything else. Especially not… this.”

The abrupt coldness in his voice causes Zitao to let out a humorless breath of a laugh, unable to believe that his beloved, sweet, delicate Yifan is behaving so trenchantly, the mention of his late wife having reflexively closed him off, as per usual, and Zitao just wishes that, for once, Yifan wouldn’t regress at times like these. “Mr. Wu,” he mumbles as the president strides across the room, covering meters of space with minimal steps given his long legs, paying very little attention to the model as he pokes his head into his vice’s office and requests that his vice fetch him a meal supplement beverage from the office icebox. “I know you don’t want to talk about this kind of thing, but you really _need_ to, at least eventually. You need to uncork yourself and release everything you’ve held bottled up for ten years because you’re hurting yourself and you won’t stop until you get rid of the toxins. I’m trying to _help_ you.”

“ _Didn’t I say **not** to help me_?”

Zitao practically leaps right out of his skin by the shock of the sudden velocity of the man’s voice, so boisterously threatening that it resonates against walls and vibrates in the crevices of the model’s subconscious, unusually scary of a tone. The ruddy glow of fire burns in the man’s eyes, fists clenching at his sides similarly to the clench of his jaw, as Zitao pushes him past his ultimate breaking point.

Still, Yifan’s heated countenance does not waver. “If I had wanted to talk about such a thing, I would have _done_ so! Being that I _didn’t_ , you have absolutely no right to bring it up, if I didn’t consent to that beforehand. I would expect you to respect my boundaries and my beliefs, _Miss Huang_ because I have done nothing but respect yours! Fine, then - is this the road that you wish to go down? She’s _gone_ , because of my own insolence, and there’s nothing that I could possibly do to bring her back, is that what you wanted to _**fucking** hear_?”

Finding that it is likely better to remain impartial rather than act as an ignition catalyst, so Zitao keeps quiet as he slowly rises from the chair to face the demon shadowing him.

This is not Yifan, who stands before him overwrought with agony and fury as his aura radiates with heat. His outburst, Zitao knows very well, was simply a defense mechanism trained so finitely by his own mind, and Zitao knows that Yifan is not necessarily angry _with_ him, nor _for_ him, but instead _at_ him, rather that he is simply venting as an uncontrolled variable and faces nothing in his way to slow it. The state that he lingers in right now is the very deepest, and most tortured, portion of his heart finally exuding everything that it needs to in order to heal. This rough, violent switch of personality is not who Yifan is, whether traumatized or unafflicted, and it certainly won’t cause Zitao to love him any less.

He remains silent, though, for he knows that Yifan needs to blow off steam and that anything the model could say, whether benevolent or not, would only further catalyze the eruption of the conversation.

It’s not until Vice Zhang returns, pardoning himself entry into the president’s quarters with a foil-topped portable beverage in his hand, a well-constructed composure written across his features. “Here you are, sir,” is what he says, forgoing the choice to hand it to the president directly and, instead, carefully setting it upon the edge of the desk for Yifan to take as he pleases.

Swiftly, however, the president snatches it from the desk as his gaze falls, eyes intent on scanning the ingredients label to confirm its validity, before he sets it down in front of the model - no, slams it down, he can assume, based on the kneejerk jolt that the model’s shoulders give. “Drink it,” he says, accidentally commands, and can only devoutly hope that the model will accept the command and intake his much-needed calories. Despite the very trying move to act more gently, his eyes are still much too abrasive, composure still much too solid, and Zitao wants his Yifan back.

Besides, Yifan seems to respond to being loved and appreciated, and Zitao is certainly not one to turn down such a necessary request. Sweetly, he glances up at the man with drying tear-tracks painting his undereyes, thankful that he had worn waterproof mascara today. “Only if you hug me first,” he propositions coquettishly, far too willing to bend and break the rules at the sole cost of Yifan’s happiness.

The statement, alone, does not seem to chip into Yifan’s composure deeply enough, for the man simply breathes out an exasperated breath and sets his tongue in his cheek, likely believing that Zitao merely wants to toy with him. “I gave you an order, Miss Huang, and I expect you to follow that order diligently. Must I repeat myself regarding your position of speech beneath figures of authority?”

He speaks many tall words, stretched far past their recoiling point as he strings them out further and further, and simultaneously manages to play a game hard enough to intimidate even the most miserly of clientele, but Zitao knows that he is all talk. “I never said that I wouldn’t follow your orders,” Zitao coos quietly, as he rakes his thumb back and forth over the roughened ridge of the drink’s foil top, “but rather, that I would only follow them if you hugged me first.”

Sighing, Yifan’s eyes threaten to roll as he unfolds his arms with what seems to be a monumental effort and, with disgust in his gaze and a vivid lack of desire, leans smoothly forward to wrap his arms around the model’s frail body. It’s not a hug - at least, not yet, merely a curtaining of limbs in the mirage of a hug, but it’s not what Zitao had meant when implementing his request.

The model lifts a leg, then, to gain leverage over the height of his boss as he placates himself on the man’s desk, knees bent beneath himself to add several inches to his new height, and repositions them so that Yifan is now laying his head upon the model’s shoulder, arms tucked comfortably around the small of the model’s back, and Zitao threads a manicured hand into the back of the man’s hair as they sigh in unison. It’s what Yifan needs, and his theory is only confirmed when the tension in his boss’ broad shoulders deflates beneath his gentle touch, his pent-up stress finally exiting after his outburst. Sure, it certainly helped to uncork the bottle, but Zitao was never going to empty it unless he had tilted it upside-down to drain.

When Yifan begins to apologize softly into his skin, a warm, broad palm carefully massaging his back in comforting little motions, Zitao pulls away to peel away the foil film sealing the beverage and takes a sizable sip, cheery that Yifan, despite never having outright told him, had purchased vanilla replacement shakes rather than Zitao’s notoriously unfavorited banana-flavored shakes.

“Come over later?” The man asks quietly when Zitao has managed to swallow half of the bottle’s contents, at this point, his throat managing to accept that which the boy feeds it. Spending ample time with the man in private is never a good idea, but Zitao has a feeling that his abrupt declination to have sex the first time he had come over, likely still lingers in the crevices of Yifan’s mind and, therefore, has likely spelled out to him to not initiate nor ask about such a thing.

“I really shouldn’t,” he sighs, has to sigh, really. “I really need to get to the hospital after work to check on my mom, because there are only four more days until her surgery, and - and we never know if she’ll even make it to the surgery date and since I never have time to go see her during work, I usually have to - ”

There’s a hand gently curtaining his, tenderly bathing his soft fingertips in caring warmth as the broad pad of Yifan’s thumb gently careens over his knuckles. “Please?”

Yifan is kind and compassionate, and would never forcibly hurt the one he loves, so why would Zitao think of him any more lowly? “Okay,” he whispers, and the rewarding smile that he gets, bright and beautifully joyous upon such a stoic expression, pulls at his timid heart.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Yifan - despite _strictly_ reiterating that he is not, in fact, self-conscious about his culinary skills after having had them shunned by Zitao’s less-than-picky preferences - does not cook for him the second time that the model decides to spend the night, but rather, orders food for the two of them to enjoy over candlelight. It’s artificially intimate and somewhat romantic, sure, but Zitao cannot help but feel as though it were somewhat ingenuine, merely a false sense of discrepancy to disguise insecurity.

Despite having not crafted him a five-star, world-breakingly exquisite meal, Zitao had immensely appreciated the gesture, nonetheless, and had braved it for the sake of giving Yifan the happiness and satisfaction of knowing that, none only was Zitao eating, but Zitao was eating food that he, himself, had made.

Still, although the gesture was very much well-received, the man continues to show insecurity in his own skills and continues to shy away from the idea of flaunting them any further, as he watches the model dip her glossy spoon beneath the creamy surface of the lobster bisque and bring it to her lips in curiosity.

It pleases him far deeper than the moisture of his skin will show, to see the model putting forth a fortified effort to eat, despite the casualties it may cause her and despite the difficulties that one had to cross in order to salvage redemption, to brave the elements of her disorder to an extent to battle it face-to-face with each spoonful that she takes. “How is it?” He finds himself asking in far too taut of a tone, riddled with anticipation, for no matter how inadequately the expensive meal could have possibly been prepared, he knows that it will always be far better than his own mediocre handiwork.

Gluttonous as she always is, despite the lack of desire that her disorder forces her to withstand, she gives a bouncing nod as a little pink tongue wipes away the rest of the cream upon the gleam of the spoon. “It’s good,” the model tells him, the heavenly golden tones in those eyes glimmering warmly in the flickering glow, “but I prefer your cooking, more.”

The statement draws his brows inward in stress, unable to process why she could possibly be so tasteless as to prefer something that his clumsy hands had miraculously thrown together. Although an artist, the culinary practice has never been his forte, and Yifan would sooner excel at embroidering rare Russian mink than caramelizing a cream-based roux. “Don’t lie to me like that,” he scoffs humorlessly, rolling his eyes as he settles his cheek against his knuckles as he watches the model eat. “You’re a pitiful liar - it was written all over your face.”

“I told you it was _fine_ ,” Zitao laughs after another spoonful, grateful that Yifan had taken his constant struggle into account to the extent that he would go out of his way to feed the model mostly liquids, as they seem to go down far easier than solids, right now. “You tried your best just for me, and that’s all I could ever ask you for.”

Yifan is far more cautious with him now than he had been previously, touching him only with the lightest of pressures as though he may crumble beneath his touch like sand. Zitao knows that he may be sick, but he’s not precious china - Yifan can be a little bit more stern with him if he needs to be.

That being said, the warmth of the man’s skin bleeding into the pads of his own fingers is certainly cathartic, as Zitao glances down at their point of connectivity and admires how his little, prettily-nailed fingers elegantly complement the handsome breadth of Yifan's own. He wouldn’t mind perhaps staying linked with him all evening, just like this, enjoying each other’s company as Zitao trudges toward finishing his soup.

When he glances down from the man’s eyes, however, the spoon stills in his mouth as he catches sight of the little gleam that wraps itself around the man’s finger, strikingly luminescent beneath the glow. It’s not perhaps surprising, per se, that Yifan continues to wear his wedding ring, but it’s certainly a little bit upsetting for Zitao to be intimately itemized with such a person who continues to flaunt the item that marks them as taken.

Yifan must notice his gaze, however, for the hand holding his own is pulled back with an abrupt little exhalation of breath, and guilt floods Zitao’s entire being as he reaches, yearningly, for that touch once more. “I’m sorry,” he stammers, suddenly, his spoon clinking against the side of the bowl. “I didn’t - I hadn’t meant to stare - ”

“It’s fine,” the man states curtly, unwilling to move an inch as he runs the pad of his thumb over the engraved letters on the side, engravings that he had specially picked out for his wife in preparation to ask for her hand in marriage with a devout profession of his own unending passion for her. It may certainly be inappropriate to hang onto such a sentimental item when interested in another, but for him, it’s symbolic and is now a part of him. “I never take it off,” he sighs, as he pulls the ring from his finger and admires it in the light, “because it helps remind me that she’s always with me, no matter what. If I ever feel lost or alone, she’s always here.”

He breathes carefully as the words hang in the silent air, for anyone else would have likely gotten angry and would have stood up and stormed out, fed up with hearing the item of their own love and desire proclaim their need in an old flame, but Zitao is mere days away from losing the love of his own life, as well, so he gets it. “You don’t wear it because you still love her,” he comments quietly, and Yifan’s eyes narrow slightly at the wording as he glances over at him, “but you wear it for the romantic support, don’t you? She makes you feel stable and admired, and without that, you feel helpless - don’t you?”

Crestfallen, the man lets out a sigh and sets the ring down on the table, rather than placing it back on his finger, and that initiative over everything speaks absolute volumes. “Yeah,” he nods a little, feeling awkward and bizarrely claustrophobic at the spacious dining table. “I’m sorry, I… most women really hate it. That I wear it, I mean. They hate that I can’t get over it, and I… I hate that I can’t get over it, either, but… I’m trying. I can’t simply throw her away and pretend it never happened - there are still nights, over ten years later, where I wake up in a cold sweat because I happen to dream of it happening to another loved one. When I wear this ring, it makes it feel less tragic, and like she’s simply a part of my subconscious, now, to lead me toward better choices.”

And that, above everything else, is where they are exactly the same; this is not necessarily about Yifan still having valid feelings for his late wife, but rather, is about him learning to cope with his own trauma as it continues to manifest and cause him stress. “Have you thought about seeking help?” Zitao asks in a tiny voice, careful not to push too far so as to not ignite the man’s sensitive temper. “Not to get over it, but for coping. You might have post-traumatic stress disorder, and if you’re struggling with sleep and having vivid nightmares, a solid medication might do you well.”

“Does it happen to you, too?” Yifan asks in a slightly-broken tone, worry pulling his eyebrows inward as the lines in his forehead deepen, and the look in his eyes is absolutely pitiful and damaged in a way that makes Zitao want to hug him. “The nightmares… the frustration… any of it?”

“Of course,” the model tells him as he reaches forward for the ring, sat idly on the table, and it does not go unnoticed the way Yifan’s hands instinctively jerk forward to retrieve it as though it were being stolen. “There are nights, sometimes, where I don’t even sleep a wink - I can’t, not with the nightmares and the anxiety attacks that they bring on, and when I go into an attack, it’s a struggle just to breathe, let alone to sleep. I’m on one milligram of Niravam twice daily, and it helps. For me, it acts almost like a mild tranquilizer and fills me with an evened-out calmness, but other people with disorders might need an antidepressant over anything else.”

The statement seems to sink into the man’s mind, then, judging by the way his gaze slowly depresses until he’s gazing, unseeingly, at the tablecloth as his mind processes everything. Zitao cannot imagine, although he has the shadow of an idea, how it must feel to live as a widow.

“I’m sorry for how I shouted at you earlier,” Yifan suddenly states, visibly softened and repentant for how he has behaved today, despite Zitao knowing just how to calm him back down, as the man threads a hand into his styled hair in stress and pulls at it from the roots, taking his own pain out on himself. “You didn’t deserve that, and I had acted horribly toward you and I regret it because I just… I’m just…”

He’s scared, and Zitao knows he is. He’s frightened that he’s going to lose him, too.

Calmly, the model reaches for the hand wound into his dark hair and pulls it free, as he brings it closer to himself and gently kisses the pad of the man’s middle finger, his longest finger. “Hey,” he coos softly, emotionally tying the man down to allow him to float back down to earth. “I’m right here - okay? Look at me. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Yifan’s fingers in his grasp give an involuntary little twitch as the model brings his palm just a little bit closer before spreading it across his upper chest over the fabric of his blouse, and allows Yifan to feel his heartbeat, the dignified sign that he is truly alive.

It helps because Yifan lets out a long, shuddery sigh that he had likely been holding in pent-up from the stress of relentlessly worrying, and his form finally sags and the tension in his shoulders finally drops as Zitao coaxes him into submission. “Thank you,” he offers quietly, weakly brushing his thumb loving along the rounding of the model’s cheekbone, and Zitao grins against his skin. “Sorry, I… I’m sorry for getting us off of track - we should probably clean up, now.”

Confused, the model happens to glance down at the table and, once again, notices the presence of used, bare dishes upon woven oxblood placemats, and remembers that they had entirely forgotten about finishing dinner. Then again, they both were plenty aware, beforehand, that Zitao likely wouldn’t have been able to finish his soup, but he did manage to make an attempt, and until he can find the time to seek proper help, any attempt is enough for Yifan.

“Right,” he nods as they awkwardly untangle, much like hormonal, shy preteens separating from having been caught French kissing.

He assists in washing everything to make up for not finishing his meal, once more, blouse sleeves curled at his elbows as Yifan stands awkwardly at his side without something to do, as he quietly complains that _I don’t want a woman to think that she needs to do the most of the cleaning - I’ll do it, you know_ , and Zitao laughs, a little, the non-privilege of being a female that he’s never had to experience finally rearing its head. Regardless of his gender, Zitao always cleans up after himself, and then some.

When he passes a chinaware plate to Yifan for him to hand-dry, he sneakily leans forward to steal a kiss on the plump rounding of the man’s jowls before dipping his soaked hands into the sudsy water once more, fingertips pruned and the gross, spongy press of wet food nauseating, at best, but the rosy blush having spread across Yifan’s cheeks certainly makes up for it.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
He hadn’t necessarily been intending to sleep over, what, with fully having planned to leave after dinner and head to the hospital to check on his mother’s welfare. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t fully taken into account how clingy Yifan can sometimes get when he is emotional, and, being that he had nearly gone into a rage-induced shut down of an episode twice today if Zitao hadn’t pulled him out both times, it comes as practically no surprise when he asks if the model would be willing to spend the night.

Of course, Zitao’s immediate reaction is to decline, both for the sake that he will be unable to visit the hospital tonight if he is taking care of Yifan, and additionally, that _spending the night_ could very easily be surreptitious code for _late-night fucking_ , and Zitao isn’t really a fan of having his identity revealed, literally, by an unfortunate erection. Which, if Zitao was going to agree to this and was going to agree to borrow Yifan’s clothing to sleep in, tonight, then there was going to have to be a strict no-intimate-touching rule set in place. Thankful that, at least, the model was willing, Yifan had fervently agreed to the terms set and had sworn that there would be no funny business tonight.

Part of him had expected Yifan to be quite rusty in the romance department, but he’s pleasantly surprised when the man meets him in the living room with a bottle of red wine in one hand, Petit Verdot from several years ago that had been aging itself well in Yifan’s liquor cellar, and a bowl of freshly-buttered popcorn in the other, along with the proposition, “Would you like to watch a movie tonight?”

Neither of them had, yet, changed out of their work clothes, Zitao still sat in his form-fitting pencil skirt with an uncomfortably chunky zipper digging into his lower back, despite it being a rather pretty shade of boysenberry, while Yifan had remained in his suited attire, just minus the blazer, where it lingers on the snowy corner of his loveseat. Truthfully, Zitao is never picky when it comes to spending time with another person, whether that be physically in terms of activity and setting or economically, whether it’s costly and displacing or relatively small and inexpensive. “Sure,” he agrees, the corners of his lips raising. “I love movies.”

Yifan grins, then, a tight-lipped curve of a smile, as he sets the bowl down onto the glass of the coffee table before smoothly standing one more and motioning toward the bookshelf on the adjacent wall, wide and spacious and littered with novels and packaged discs in organized rows. “You are my guest, so you are welcome to pick one out yourself. Don’t worry, I am not picky - though, just a heads-up, I don’t really like animated movies.”

Zitao nods, then, and imagines himself being upset by the fact that he wouldn’t be able to get Yifan to sit and enjoy a run-through of _Ponyo_. “I don’t like horror movies,” he offers tinily, hands awkwardly wrung together between his knees as though afraid that he may be yelled at. He wonders, quietly, to himself, if perhaps the man’s late wife had a preference for animated movies and, perhaps, that may be why Yifan no longer enjoys them, but Zitao is probably thinking too deeply into it.

“What a coincidence,” the man tells him with a content grin across moisturized lips, as he reaches for the remote to bring the television to the proper channel for disc reading, “because I don’t like horror movies, either.”

He could laugh happily at the knowledge that his partner won’t sneak a gory horror movie on him when he least expects, even desires, it, if not for the fact that Yifan’s distaste in horror, specifically, might be connected to his trauma. It’s saddening, but Zitao doesn’t like gore, either, so they can very easily compensate for each other’s preferences. “Actually,” the model speaks up, catching Yifan’s attention as the man glances over at him, one hand resting comfortably in his trouser pocket as Zitao searches for the words. “Do you, um… would I be allowed to, maybe… borrow some clothes for tonight? To - to change into. I’d like to change out of my work clothes, first, but I… I wasn’t expecting to stay over, so I didn’t bring anything with me, and I feel poorly about needing to take something from you and not only am I not allowed to root through your house unconsented - ”

Yifan interrupts him with a gentle hand around his wrist, carefully tugging him up into a standing position to stop his errant rambling, and Zitao’s cheeks have reddened as he is brought into the warmth of the man’s personal space. “First, please do not ramble - you will confuse yourself, and second, I am not going anywhere, so please take your time. Third, yes, you most certainly may borrow some clothing. Here, this way.”

Embarrassed, the model’s cheeks flush as he quickly quiets before following Yifan down the hall, likely toward the man’s master bedroom. It’s entirely foreign territory, as new as a freshly-birthed baby only seconds old, plentifully decorated with portraits of shoots that Zitao both has and has not laid eyes upon before, likely ones that had been considered legendary enough to make it into a, quite figurative, hall-of-fame. He catches sight of a print of Sojin on the left wall near what appears to be a restroom, followed by an adjacent portrait of Amber in an outdoor shoot beneath the warm, golden glow of the sun. Zitao can’t help but smile, for the man truly does admire his work to the extent of portraying it all around his house, art in its most absolute form, and it’s beautifully sweet. This truly is his passion, to be able to portray humans the way he wants in the colors and patterns that he so desires.

“I love your pictures,” he offers kindly behind the man’s back, and it certainly does not go unnoticed the way Yifan glances back over his shoulder with a gracious smirk upon his lips and a grateful look in his eye.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” The president asks with a gently rhetorical edge soaking his voice, knowing very well that his work and the art which he produces are both breathtaking and one-of-a-kind. “Over the years, I’ve kept only the most exquisite of publications to consistently remind myself of my own prowess. My work is, quite simply, my art, and I cherish each and every piece.”

Although never having been one with enough wealth to decorate his own home plentifully, Zitao has always immensely admired the act and the thought process behind such actions, and, therefore, he completely understands why Yifan would forego picking up rarer collector’s pieces at a swap meet and, instead, utilize his own creations. Surely, if someone held enough pride for their self and their own achievements, why would they not want to boast about it?

It does sadden him, however, that he cannot manage to spot any prints of _him._

Considering Zitao had been said to be the man’s top-shelf favorited model, and his romantic partner, as an added bonus, Zitao would have expected at least one print of him to hang up among these walls. Hadn’t Yifan been rather clear regarding how attractive he had considered the model to be? If Zitao were, supposedly, so unconventionally appealing, wouldn’t Yifan want to show him off, in the comfort of his own home, as well?

He doesn’t get much time to internally debate it before Yifan takes a hard right into what must be considered the master bedroom, beautifully expansive with a polished, marble flooring carpeted only beneath the furniture with plush, furred rugs in pristinely stark white, a lush complement to the dark chocolatey oak boudoirs and the shimmery wooden bed posts that outline the man’s massive bed, likely a necessity for a person above six-foot.

“Before you ask,” the president smoothly states in front of him, gently pulling Zitao out of the fog that he had been floating in, and when he finally settles back down to earth, there is a calm, homely smile upon the man’s lips as he speaks, “yes, I do sleep in this room. My mother and I had shared this room, and, consecutively, this bed, when she was receiving hospice care and was under my own personal watch.”

He blinks, then, for that was not something that was on his agenda to seek the answer to. Rather, Zitao had been curious why there were no prints of himself when there are prints of each and every other model who had successfully cemented a revenue for themselves. “I wasn’t going to ask,” he comments softly as Yifan’s fingertips affectionately trace his wrists, “but it is a gorgeous room.”

An impressed little smirk is what he gets. “Well, I am glad that you think so, for I think it is lavish, as well. Nevermind - that is not what we are here for.”

It’s a little bit surprising when Yifan passes him a handful of clothing to designate for sleep tonight, having half-expected it to be something skimpy and revealing, perhaps a workout tank by itself to leave Zitao in his panties for the man’s own viewing pleasure. However, what Yifan has given him alongside a courteous, “Here - the bathroom is right outside and immediately to the right, please use it to your desire and feel free to take as much time as you need,” is a rather masculine sleepwear set including a pair of trousers with fitting ankle cuffs and a short-sleeved shirt, something that he suspects would not likely have been purchased for anyone other than the man, himself, as the models are much tinier than someone of Yifan’s stature. Zitao, being a six-foot man, as well, however, is very likely to fit the sleepwear set, above everyone else.

Still, it’s strangely charming to realize that Yifan had, specifically for him, shoved aside his own desires to make Zitao feel as comfortable and as thankfully clothed as possible, and the model’s eyebrows furrow as his thumbs run over the fabric in his hands in thought. “Hey, wait,” he calls out softly, confusion washed over his features as Yifan’s broad shoulders tense in the doorway where he glances back over his shoulder, a hand lingering, forgotten, on the knob.

“What is it?” The man asks as the model stands, quietly, in the unfamiliar, carpeted comfort of the bedroom.

It’s hard to say, exactly, what it is that is on Zitao’s mind - that is to say that his brain is not already full of other worries at hand, what, with the impending date of his mother’s kidney surgery to save Yifan’s mother, a sacrifice to save one out of two lives if both cannot be salvaged. No, now there is something new on Zitao’s mind, something that he would not have thought would have plagued his thoughts.

Why isn’t Yifan trying to do anything?

Sure, Zitao had made it quite clear the first time he had come over for dinner that anything intimate between the two of them that pushed the envelope into the realm of sexuality was strictly off-limits, but he didn’t really expect Yifan to _listen_. After all, how many of the models has he, most likely, slept with before him? The rumor of the president’s sexual endeavors came very early in Zitao’s work term, as though it were just second nature for everybody in the firm to know. Surely, somebody with a libido _that_ rampant would not likely be so respectfully repressed - then again, why is he complaining?

What if Yifan no longer finds him desirable?

No, that’s stupid. Zitao set his boundaries in stone, fair-and-square, and it’s actually very gentlemanly and mannerly telling of the man to follow such a demand, for it means that Zitao can feel comfort regarding not having to have his privacy nonconsensually invaded. Still, he’s sure that it would feel at least a little bit nice to know that he’s considered attractive enough to have sex with, but is that too hypocritical? It’s not that he necessarily wants to get sexually intimate with him, but why won’t Yifan even really kiss him like he used to?

“I just, uh,” he stammers softly, sinking his teeth gently into his lower lip, “I was wondering why there aren’t any, um… any prints of - me? In your home, I mean. I - I mean, it’s not like I’m _jealous_ , I just - uh…”

The crease between Yifan’s eyebrows deepens as he mulls it over, not having expected that question out of any. The model is fidgeting, unsure of where she stands in their relationship and, likely, where he stands, as well. Yifan had never quite given much thought to the lack of picture evidence of the model upon his walls, for she was already in an established relationship with him - was that not enough? “I didn’t expect that something like that would have upset you, Yingtao,” he states gently, eyes narrowing slightly in concern.

“No, I’m not upset,” he shakes his head, laughing nervously beneath his breath. “It’s just - I mean… you have prints of other people, like… like Sojin, and Amber, and Yebin, and… and _Jessica_ , and…”

Exhaling softly, Yifan finally begins to understand what kind of playing field they happen to be dancing across right now. “Yes, you’re right, I do,” he gives a firm nod, turning back into the room to face the model once more. “I have them because I am immensely proud that I employ such breathtaking women who hold the ability to stretch my brand into success. I want to always remind myself of my achievements and what I have accomplished over the span of this decade.”

Zitao knows that - the man likely has his own insecurities just like anybody else and may need the constant reminder that he is extremely talented, especially in moments where self-deprecation is present, but that still does not explain why Zitao does not hold a print upon the prestige of Yifan’s walls. “I know that,” he voices his thoughts, tone quite puny in comparison to the sonority of his subconscious.

“And do you perhaps know why you are not up there, upon the wall, as well?” Yifan questions, suddenly much closer than before, so much so that he has taken the clothes from the model’s hold and set them onto the dresser, and the hand entangled in Zitao’s hair certainly feels very real as it combs seductively against his sensitive scalp. Immediately curling into him at the much-craved attention, the model lets out a quiet little mewl when the man’s hold on him tilts his head back. “That is because, although you are the rarest gem of them all, I would much rather be able to touch you, and hug you, and _kiss_ you, than be subject to merely staring.”

His heartbeat begins to rabbit unevenly as the words soften his knees, causing his weight to lean and causing the man’s arms to have to wrap around him to keep him steady. Doesn’t Yifan know that speaking in such a way will only cause him to weaken? “O - oh,” he stutters softly, finding it difficult to catch his breath when in such an intimate trance. It would be so simple to set his words in stone and surge forward to claim a kiss and solidify the truth that Yifan craves him, but what if that completely dissipates the boundaries that Zitao had set? Would that make Yifan believe that the line was now available to step over?

“And besides,” the president smirks as the hand having cradled the model’s skill slithers free from his hair as featherlight fingertips trace the ridges of his collarbone, eliciting a little gasp as Zitao’s chest expands and lifts to chase the sensation, as the man’s tone drops completely to the breath of a whisper as he says, “why would I waste my time with a portrait of you when I could have the real you in my arms all day?”

The words are stated with an accompanying smirk, something so shit-eating that Zitao just wants to smack it right off of his face and wipe it from existence, and his lack of control over such a situation burns warmly in his veins. Now, he finally understands just how it might be so easy to be seduced by such a person, because it seems as though in three seconds flat, Zitao had been reduced to a boneless, tenderhearted putty, malleable in properly-skilled fingers. “You’re a devil, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Yifan questions with a snarky edge to his breathy tone, leaning closer to diminish their proximity even further as the model’s back hits the nearby wall, entrapping him between two immobile forces. “I seem to recall that your demeanor completely softens when I even so much as pay you a compliment - if I were really that intimately mesmeric of a polymorphic creature, wouldn’t I, instead, be considered an incubus?”

He’s every bit as gear-grinding as Zitao would expect him to be, boldly confident and consciously enthralling wherein his self-awareness has peaked, thoroughly enlightened to the knowledge that he was, overall, quite irresistible. He gloats in full, even going so far as to lean closer and gently nibble at the model’s lips in an attempt to get them to separate, before carefully entrapping his lower lip between his teeth and gently tugging. The sensation pulls a grunt from Zitao’s throat before he can stop it, a subdued tingle beginning to rise in the little strip of kissed flesh, and, thereafter, a full-bodied shudder.

He’s trying to get Zitao to crack - that much is evident, but Zitao knows that he can be stronger than this. He won’t let Yifan tear down his walls that easily - that is, he would like to say that at least _one_ of them needs to have some self-restraint, except that the president, clearly, has much more than he.

“So if you think that I’m so into you,” Zitao fights back, voice lacking all threat among the fog of restrained desire, “then why don’t you do something about it?”

Finely-tuned in attentivity, he does not miss the spark in the man’s eyes as Zitao dares him to make a move, broad hands splayed on the breadth of the wall which bracket the model safely in, leaving him prettily helpless against stark white. “Is that a challenge?” The president questions lowly, familiarly baritone in a way that borders on husky - something that Zitao has gotten very accustomed to. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you - see, with a job like yours, it is preemptive to me that you be able to _walk_.”

The threat goes straight through him, the innuendo rough around the edges, and Zitao practically whimpers in submission at the thought of getting _that_ dick inside of him. He’s absolutely certain, despite never having seen him bare, that even if Yifan were not impressively well-endowed, he surely must know how to move because nobody with _this_ amount of sexual self-confidence could be inexperienced and lowly-rated. “You wouldn’t dare,” he whispers, one of Yifan’s eyebrows raising in immediate response. “I already told you there would be no action tonight - and I wasn’t talking about the movie.”

Yifan laughs at him, then, shoulders bouncing rhythmically with each breathy chuckle as though something strangely sour about Zitao’s composure had presented humorously, his gentle fingers tracing the long waves of the model’s limp hair down the side of her rib cage, which causes Zitao to gasp and arch, again, unexpectedly sensitive. “My dear,” he croons softly, warmly, voice alluring. “You have far too low of expectations for me - you see, I would never dare overstep the lines of your own consent unless you pull me over those lines yourself. That is to say, that, my hands are tied until you, willingly, unknot my restraints.”

He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, once more, wondering how much he could possibly milk this out and how much he could, possibly, challenge him. “Should we see how far we can push it then?” He questions breathily as his hands slide up the expanse of the president’s broad chest and wind around the back of his neck into the soft tufts of hair, there, before Zitao hastily pulls him in for a hungry kiss. The contact presses his weight back into the wall, Yifan’s breadth proving helpful to keep him upright as the model completely foregoes soft and tender and dives right in for rough, an incisor sinking into Yifan’s bottom lip to get him to submit.

It falls in vain, however, when Yifan’s tongue unceremoniously licks along the edge of his teeth, and electrifyingly gentle fingertips find the slender expanse of his outer thighs to gently knead at the flesh and coax them into raising, a helpless little moan spilling from rosy, bitten lips as Zitao is coerced into wrapping a leg around the thick of the man’s waist, practically pressing them right together.

He gasps, arches, when a hot tongue finds the side of his neck and begins to laver it in scorching kisses, open-mouthed and filthy along the ridges of his exposed clavicles where the buttons of his blouse have separated. The model helplessly tangles a hand in the man’s dark hair before it tightens and he pulls, managing to convince Yifan to raise his head and connect their lips once more, and when the shy brush of a little pink tongue shyly flirts with the man’s own, Zitao begins to indulge.

This is what he had been so bone-deeply craving - the intimate hold in Yifan’s arms, the safest place he could possibly be within these walls, sharing kiss after passionate kiss with his hands in the man’s hair and Yifan’s thumbs resting comfortably on the juts of his hip bones. It had never been about the sexual intimacy between the two of them to make Zitao feel alluring and attractive, nor about finding the time to undress each other and hide out in a utility closet. Yifan, despite obviously not having expected Zitao to turn down sexual advances, had pampered him with dates and tender gifts and had formulated a relationship all by himself, simply based on trust and comfort.

When Yifan isn’t kissing him, everything feels fractured and incorrect, like the well-constructed basis of their relationship were suddenly fragmented and the pieces were scattered. It feels like Zitao may lose him, may no longer be able to hold him in his arms once the truth has to come out, but when they’re connected like this, none of that matters. Right now, Yifan is his, and, for the time being, he is Yifan’s, as well.

He makes sure to hook the man’s bottom lip between his own and pull it towards him as they separate, earning himself a handsomely low grunt as Yifan’s tongue peeks attractively out to nurse the little bite. “If you really want me to let you have sex with me one day,” he whispers lowly, licking over his own lips and pulling back a hand to wipe at the lipstick that has smeared below his lip lines, “then you’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

A challenge, it is - one that Yifan intends to _win_. “I don’t know how adept I will be at accomplishing such a task,” he warns with a joyous smirk on his lips. “I have not yet had a woman decline a night with me.”

It may be misogynistic, what, with Yifan quite literally being a self-expectant spoiled brat who expects everything handed to him via a silver, diamond-encrusted spoon, but Zitao doesn’t mind that much. Yifan is learning, the same way that every other person does with each day, and he is trying to open his mind and improve, likely just for Zitao’s sake. If something affects Zitao negatively, Yifan has begun to take it personally out of the sheer lack of control over how little he knows in regards to helping others. “Well,” he grins, reaching carefully forward to softly rub at a familiarly rosy smudge on the man’s cupid’s bow, “I guess you’re in for a little challenge, then, aren’t you?”

It’s a mutually gratuitous decision, one that Zitao knows that he will have no time to complete, what, with his priorities being everywhere _other_ than the bedroom, but hopefully, it will give him a little bit of leeway to solidify Yifan’s feelings for him even further. Hopefully, if Yifan actually, genuinely, falls in love with him, the blow that the truth will bring won’t ache too deeply.

“I guess I am, then,” Yifan replies with a mischievous grin, allowing the model’s legs to settle back onto the floor as they begin to separate so that Zitao can return to changing his clothes for the night. “Game on.”

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Yifan offers him a glass of liquor as Zitao is about a fifth of the way through the movie, cozy in the temporarily-donated sleepwear set where he sits on Yifan’s creamy loveseat. The suede is warm, likely the type to become overly so, especially in the more temperate months, but Zitao would prefer this over freezing and constantly shivering in somebody’s far-too-air-conditioned home. Cough, Luhan.

Still, although Zitao would normally love to propose a toast to dual glasses of scotch, he decides to politely decline despite Yifan’s gentle complaining protests. If he were to receive any kind of emergency call regarding his mother, Zitao wants to be as sober as physically possible, lest he be required to get into a vehicle to drive while inebriated. “I’m really okay, but thank you,” the model offers a comforting grin to put Yifan’s dejection to rest.

He would have expected there to be that familiar haze of awkwardness after their little tussle against the wall while Zitao had still been very much professionally clothed, still having been in his stockings and skirt from work and, given his newfound experience in borderline intimacy, he’s discovered that he can get away with a little bit of heavy kissing before he really finds himself with a pretty hard problem at hand - _literally_. He would have expected neither he nor Yifan to know what to talk about, given that each conversation they have wherein one of them isn’t sad seems to intensify with heat and turn suggestive in one way or another, but Yifan has been quite comfortable to enjoy the company of.

It had taken him a long moment to actually work up the courage to come out into the living room after removing his makeup and hair extensions, however, suddenly highly insecure that he would appear too masculine without the accompaniment and may accidentally give it away. He had hidden himself away within the confines of the bathroom for so long that Yifan had to practically beg him to come out, coaxing him gently with words of reassurance behind the wooden partition. When Zitao had finally found the guts to come out, staring at the floor, Yifan, newly-clad in his own sweater-joggers combo, had gotten silent for quite a long while and it had dawned on the model that it was, quite possibly, the first time he’d ever let the man see him completely bare-faced. “I’m ugly without makeup, aren’t I?” He asks rhetorically, avoiding the man’s eye as his hand lingers on the door frame. “I know I am, you don’t have to say it.”

What coerced him deeper into the realm of intimacy was the featherlight thumb brushing invisible tears away upon pale, glassy cheeks from his moisturizer, as Yifan had ducked down to be at a more appropriate level to meet their gazes. When Zitao had glanced back up to judge the man’s reaction, Yifan had been staring at him as though he were admiring his own newborn, a brand-new sight all for him. “You’re beautiful,” he had crooned softly, tenderly, and had pulled Zitao into the kittenish of kisses given that the model, now barefoot, were finally shorter than him and gave him back an advantage at kissing. That, in and of itself, had been enough to convince Zitao to return to the living room.

They had settled on the movie Avatar, something that was neither horror nor completely animated, a compromise reached between two picky parties. Zitao had seen the movie before, but the president most likely had not, judging by how unfamiliarly he had gazed at the packaging when popping the disc free from its constraints. He assists in setting up the living space for him to make use of later tonight when Yifan will turn in for the night and leave him to his own devices. “I still think it’s unfair,” the president complains when he catches sight of Zitao unfurling the guest blanket and draping it across the loveseat, a soft little pout upon plush lips that starkly contrasts the deep crease between his brows. “I still think that I should take the couch so that you may have the master bed.”

He sighs, smiling a little bit. “Mr. Wu, I told you it was fine,” he replies courteously, fluffing the pillows before piling them high against the far left arm of the sofa. He always did prefer multiple unfulfilling pillows stacked aside from one single large, plush pillow. “I’m not going to kick you out of your bed just because I’m staying over.”

“Yifan,” the man coos almost instantaneously, and Zitao looks up from where he had been perusing the silken embroidery on the pillows, thick and likely, very expensive. Right - he had never actually addressed the man by his first name, before, and, therefore, Yifan likely has no idea that Zitao knew of his secretive personal name before now. “When we’re alone, you can call me Yifan.”

He blushes, not quite used to how soft the man’s tone gets when he’s being gentle, for it makes him weak at the knees. “ _Yifan_ ,” he tries, as though he hadn’t been rehearsing the same name in his mind for months, now. “As I was saying, I’m not going to demand that I sleep in your bedroom the very first time I stay the night.”

Yifan reaches for him, then, gently curling long fingers around his wrist to catch his attention before he asks, “Then - would you be willing to sleep in the bed with me?”

Oh, it’s mighty tempting, but Zitao does worry what might go down if he were to allow himself into the very bed that his romantic partner sleeps in every single day, one that likely smells entirely of him and the lingering nuances of his daily cologne. Zitao is far too weak for such a temptation and knows he would act out, for this amount of constant reminders of Yifan’s attractiveness are too irresistible. “Another time,” he promises as he turns to look the man gently in the eye. The president’s demeanor has immensely softened, much more insecure than before, which means he’s likely growing tenderhearted and in need of a good cuddle, and Zitao is not one to turn down such a request. “Just not - not the _first_ time I stay over, you know?”

Yifan nods. “I understand,” he says softly, albeit dejectedly, and the barely-there sadness in his tone pulls at Zitao’s heartstrings. “If there’s anything that I can do to make you more comfortable in my care, please let me know - if you want, I will sleep out here in the recliner with you so that you are not alone. If - if you have a nightmare, that is.”

The statement truly shocks him, enough to have his heart skipping a beat as his eyes widen. He certainly hadn’t expected Yifan to actually care about his panic attacks, let alone _remember_ them. “How - how did you still…” he stammers, stunned. “I mean - I haven’t had one this week, but…”

“It’s important,” Yifan states, a hand brushing the model’s hair away from his cheek to comb it behind his ear, “because it makes you suffer. You said that it’s torturous to be alone during one, right? You said that they keep you up and that you end up calling your best friend for assistance - well, I could be that assistance if you would like.”

Zitao can’t help but fall silent, the sentiment unusually soft for such a roughened character. “You would really do that,” he questions softly, “for me?”

He’s not exactly sure why it seems hard to imagine someone like Yifan showing sensitivity toward a person with a mental illness, judging by how brusquely of a past he’s carved out for himself with the ignorance he’s held toward eating disorders birthed from his own policies. Is it too far-fetched of an idea that Yifan could possibly be trying to change? “I want to help you,” the man tells him in much smaller of a tone, as though it’s embarrassing to admit to his own weak points. “I want… I want to learn what to do. For _you_.”

Then it’s out, and the model’s heart immediately begins to bleed devotion, unable to resist the fact that Yifan is finally, after an entire decade, learning how to be gentle once more. After years of turning a blind eye to the widespread suffering of his women, Yifan is finally trying to open his mind to the world and figure out how to reverse the damage that has been done. Better yet, the sharply-eyed, broad-shouldered fiend who had sat in the office that fateful day when Zitao had clumsily tripped in his direct line of sight, the same man who had commented on the fawnish build to his walk, is trying to learn how to empathize. Smitten, Zitao surges forward for a hug.

It’s actually quite unlike Yifan to hug another person, wherein he has much more experience engaging in sexual contact as a means of connection, so the contact causes him to teeter slightly as he instinctively takes a step back, calves colliding with the cold edge of the glass coffee table. He stands awkwardly for just a precious moment, startled that, for once, the affection he had received were not passionate or lustful, and it actually shakes him quite deeply as his heartbeat skips. Is this what loving another person feels like?

“You really don’t have to do that, but, thank you,” the model mumbles into the man’s neck, the tickle of his long hair flirting along his skin as Yifan manages to wake himself up and lay a comfortingly soft swipe down the model’s back with a warm palm. Slowly, Zitao pulls back with gleaming eyes and a comfortable little smile. “Are you sure that you want to sleep out here with me? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Yingtao,” the president coos, a thumb brushing at his tender cheek. “Do not worry about me - my concern is that you are comfortable, above my own cordiality to care for myself.

He smiles, then, the sleepiness beginning to wear down upon tired eyelids and an exhausted, undernourished body, and he can’t help but instinctively turn his head as he yawns into his own palm. The president watches him comfortingly as the movie plays behind them, as the popcorn lays forgotten on the coffee table, and Yifan decides that rather than later as opposed to sooner, it was the model’s bedtime.

He offers to tuck Zitao in on his own accord and to allow him to continue to watch the movie until he successfully falls asleep, and the model can only thank him devoutly as he spares his own effort and meager ounces of free personal time to make sure that he was as comfortable as possible. Sooner rather than later, Zitao has been tucked in between the soft kiss of the suede and the texturally familiar brush of the knitted blanket, as Yifan dims the lights for him and begins to depart from him to procure a book to read in the recliner.

Still, Zitao is not yet satisfied enough to drift off and bid this day adieu as he softly calls out, “Wait - can you, um… can you - stay with me, just until I fall asleep?”

A single eyebrow raising, Yifan ponders the request for a fractal moment before offering him a homely little smirk and striding slowly over to seat himself on the free section of the loveseat where the model’s covered feet have curled. Zitao is rather small beneath the blanket, despite his elongated height nearly that of the president, himself, yet does not fill out the sofa the way a man of Yifan’s stature would. “Do you need something?” Yifan asks carefully, “or would you prefer to simply not be alone?”

It’s not necessarily that Zitao is afraid to be alone, but rather that the presence of another human being does fill him with a comfort much like taking a nap in a library - it is a setting in which he feels safe, in which he is left alone, yet if anything were to happen to him, the people lingering among the shelves around him would surely have his back. “Can you tell me a story?” He asks, little fingers peeking out to curl around the crocheted edge of the blanket. “Anything - just, kind of talk me to sleep. It helps calm me down.”

Exhaling slowly, Yifan realizes that he’s never really had to handle someone this delicately, before, not even his own mother. When his mother struggles to sleep, she much prefers the gentility of Yifan’s own presence to help lull her away, which is why he often spends hours napping on the comfort of her familiar bosom with her hands in his hair, cradling him the way she would an infant. His mother had never required to be sought after to accommodate her discomfort, and his beautiful fiancée, God, may she rest peacefully, were able to sleep _anywhere_ , be it the plush, carpeted floor or the unforgiving, arched truss of the bathtub. It’s very new to him to have to look after the model to the extent of a mere toddler, considering he had thought that the background chatter of the movie would suffice, but he’s not exactly opposed to trying. “Alright,” he agrees tenderly, leaning back into the couch as he throws an arm over the back. “What would you like me to talk about?”

Zitao bites into his lower lip, wanting to know much more about the man of so many mysteries. He’s heard about Yifan from biased others and has heard about Mochou from multiple parties, both biased and unbiased, but has never heard about the man, himself, from his own perspective. “Tell me about your present,” he states tinily, nearly drowned out by the resonant noises spilling from the surround-sound. “About - about who you aspire to be, and what you’ve been through, and… why you haven’t dated in… ten years…”

It catches him off-guard, for the man’s lips part visibly even in the dim glow of the television screen among the cool of the darkness. “Yingtao, that’s a little bit invasive, is it not?” He questions with a small, humorless chuckle etched into the crevices.

“Please?” The model childishly pleads. “I really want to know.”

The man lets out a stretched-out sigh, as though he truly does not want to engage in talk of such a subject, and Zitao immediately begins to regret having even asked for it. Then, Yifan glances over at him, the model’s eyes peeking out of the corners in case he were to be scolded, and begins to speak. “I did try to date again - once,” he tells him. Zitao’s eyebrows crease in the center, then, for he has a weird feeling that Yifan and Jessica had truly, at one point, been a _thing._

“Was it,” he begins to say quietly, not entirely sure why he is asking, “was it who I think it is?”

“No,” Yifan is quick to answer, and Zitao’s nerves do, thankfully, settle a little bit. “It was three years ago, and her name was Yifei, and she did not, in fact, work for me. We had a good relationship for the span of two months - young lovebirds, you could call us, I suppose, the kind that was physically inseparable and was, usually, attached at the hip. We did most everything together, other than work with one another - I would help her grocery shop, I had purchased her a new Camry when hers had given out from being on its last legs for far too long, and I had even sought an obscure job opportunity for her when she had been laid off. I thought that me devoting my help to her was a worthy tactic in gaining love from another person.”

Normally, Zitao would hate to bear the experience of hearing about one of his partner’s past relationships, if not one, then more, but this is absolutely vital to learning who Yifan is - besides, Yifan likely worries far too much due to his own romantic trauma, to actually cheat on him at any given point. “So what happened?”

Yifan sighs, shying his eyes away as he begins to fiddle with his ringless ring finger, an anxiety-bred movement that instantaneously catches Zitao’s eye. “Well, I did try to brush all of my judgment aside, and I did try to present a nonpartisan front, because I didn’t want to be so hung up on the past - but I couldn’t forget _everything_ , and I constantly worried and constantly panicked and called, distraught that, one day, she would no longer answer her phone. I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought of…”

Overwrought with emotion, the model can’t help but to slowly sit up, the blanket falling back down into his lap. “Hey,” he coos out breathily, barely above a whisper, and reaches out to simply touch him on the shoulder, not wanting to press physical affection any further, but rather, wanting to remind him that he was not alone. “It’s okay, she’s still alive, right?” And when Yifan solemnly nods, the model gives his shoulder a comfortingly gentle squeeze. “See? She’s alright, and there’s nothing that you did wrong.”

“That’s not the point,” the man expresses sullenly, glancing back at the model among the bluish glow of the television screen, and Zitao’s lips part as he notices just how glassy and soaked the man’s eyes are, mere seconds away from breaking. “She was right - I can’t get over what happened, and it’s ruining my relationships for me and will likely continue to ruin my relationships if I don’t get over it. I still take off of work every single year on the anniversary of her death so that I can spend the day repenting beside her grave, repenting for what I got her into.”

“No, this isn’t your fault,” he tries, but the first tear finally falls, and with it, so does Yifan’s composure.

“She wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t suggested that she leave,” Yifan croaks out, not even crying but merely leaking out his emotions as a coping mechanism. “Now, when women leave me, I no longer try to stop them because when I interject, things seem to go wrong. Yifei _hated_ that I couldn’t stop bringing up Mochou and what happened, and would tell me to just let it go and let it be a thing of the past, but…”

This is what bothers him the most, and this is the problem with able-minded people who do not suffer on a daily basis, be it like Zitao with his panic attacks or like Yifan with his trauma-induced episodes of rage. “That’s ableist, and you need to not listen to them,” he coaxes sternly. “They don’t know how to handle you, and they’re likely frustrated, and that’s _wrong_ , but it is not your fault.”

“Then why can’t I accept it and just move on?” The man bites out as he turns away, shoulders beginning to tremble and jerk and Zitao aches as the man closes himself off to sob alone, for his view on the world is that he was some cursed monster who ruins everything he touches, and nothing Zitao could do or say would convince him otherwise because Yifan is ill.

Softly, he inches forward and curtains the man’s cheek with his palm to be able to turn him to face him, the look in the man’s eyes absolutely heartbreaking and soaked in torment as though he had just been told that he had mere minutes to live. “Yifan,” he crows comfortingly, hooking both of his hands around the thick of the man’s long fingers, keeping him somewhat grounded through the episode. “You loved her with every fiber of your being, right? You don’t just _get over_ losing someone who meant that much to you, no matter what anyone else says. Trauma never goes away quickly, and I would never expect yours to, either.”

Yifan sniffles once more, glancing down at where their hands are connected as if he were experiencing physical love for the very first time and had no idea how to process it. “But you’re dating me,” he says in a puny tone, thickened from the tears. “I shouldn’t be mentioning another woman when I’m with you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zitao coos. “No matter what anybody says or how anybody tells you to feel, trauma doesn’t go away, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it _never_ went away. You might get over it one day, or you might not, but despair never goes away. You learn to cope with it, but it doesn’t leave - you might be able to drown out the thoughts, but you’ll never forget, and that’s okay. I promise.”

In this kind of a state, the man is soggy, useless, and likely an emotional burden, but Zitao never seems to mind. Each and every time he had fallen into an episode, Zitao had been there with calm, reassuring words and comforting hugs, tenderly pulling him back down to earth and stabilizing him before he went completely haywire. No matter what he may have said during one of the episodes, animose or perhaps even passive-aggressive, Zitao had never backed down and had made sure that Yifan felt more like a regular person and less like an outcast. Drenched in emotion, his chin trembles for a split-second as he croaks out a hoarse, “Thank you,” and spreads his arms for a hug, in need of physical touch that Zitao is always willing to give.

“Don’t thank me,” he hushes him, kissing the top of the man’s hair as he climbs into the open space of his lap, something that would normally have been considered sexual but now proves necessary for compassion. “You are normal, just like the rest of us. Hurting is normal.”

Yifan does not cry much more, merely exists in the hold as he focuses more or less on his own breathing, willing himself to calm back down so that he does not leak any further. As he manages to float back down into the realm of normalcy, no longer high in the sky as his emotions clash around him, he’s softer and a little more pliable than before, and Zitao, someone of many experiences with heavy late-night crying, realizes that Yifan must be much sleepier than before. Crying always seems to tire Zitao out and certainly would tire out someone who usually does not express his emotions and rather bottles them up, so the boy, with a warmed heart, reaches back for his blanket and drapes it over them as he passes Yifan a pillow.

“You need rest,” he tells the man, finding it humorously cute that their dynamic had swapped so starkly, wherein Yifan had been so determined earlier to take care of him and now, the tables have fully been turned. “I won’t leave you - I’m right here.”

It’s what the man needs, whether he would be willing to admit that, or not, and Yifan’s overused eyes instinctively flutter shut the very second he lays back upon the sofa, unguarded and entirely innocent as Zitao admires him quietly. This delicate man with an aching, unstitched heart, managed to build his own empire entirely from the ground and up, despite it being constructed around intimidation and vanity, but that was merely a professional facade to mask his true self in order to succeed. This weak-hearted, unguardedly palpable soul is who Yifan truly is, someone who had been lonely to the point of anguish for ten long years, far too long of a period of time to be completely alone. Despite all of his economic success and his loyal cabinet and staff, Yifan has always been all alone.

Zitao sheds a tear as his fingertips trace the pretty ridge of the man’s cheekbone, causing soft eyelashes to flutter as his eyes peek open, not quite asleep yet. “You okay?” Yifan whispers when he notices that the model had never actually joined him in laying down, and Zitao smiles through the singular tear at how selfless of a person Yifan truly is.

Calmly, he takes hold of a corner of the blanket and lays down, Yifan’s arm supporting his head beneath the pillow and bracketing him safely in as the man scooches just an inch into the back of the couch, for it’s certainly not easy to fit two six-foot men, lengthwise, on one couch. “I’m okay,” he confirms gently, smiling through the ache as he admires his entire world before his very own eyes, from the tortured depth of his brown eyes to the archangelic sculpt of his features, he is truly perfect in every single way despite his flaws. Gently, Zitao relaxes as the man’s eyes drift closed once more, satisfied with the knowledge that the model is not going to leave his side.

He pinpoints the exact moment that Yifan drifts off, a moment wherein his breathing levels out and his face falls silently forward, arching into himself in a naturally fetal position. He can’t help but calmly smile, despite the stick of the tear tracks drying upon his cheeks, and makes sure to brush away any of Yifan’s own amidst his sleep. “I love you,” he whispers out loud, finally admitting it to himself and relishing in the burst of warmth that overtakes his insides at the confession that he, truly, was in love with him.

Even if Yifan doesn’t respond, and additionally, doesn’t reciprocate the statement, Zitao won’t leave him.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
When he wakes, he feels, quite literally, like he's been hit by an eighteen-wheeler truck. Not so much in the, _my-body-hurts-so-badly_ way, but in the,  _I-can't-feel-my-body-I'm-so-tired_ way. As bizarre of a feeling that it is, Zitao knows that he has never felt this level of bone-deep exhaustion before, entirely foreign and quite scary, actually. Is he dying?

Another thing he notices is that the plush give of the sofa is prevalent, alone where he lays on the cushions devoid of a second body. “Yifan,” he gasps out, bleary-eyed as he gazes around in the dim of the early crack of dawn to try to spot the man through the darkened haze.

Within seconds, a familiar shadow comes back into his line of sight, tall and broad-shouldered and familiar as Zitao grimaces in discomfort and blindly reaches forth for consolation. Yifan strides quickly over, his features coming into focus as he enters the dim glow of the early-morning sunlight having begun to bleed through the curtains, bringing pure, instant relief to Zitao, who had begun to panic among the darkness as his breaths have become tight and short.

“Hey,” Yifan crows softly, voice still somewhat hoarse from sleep, but from the looks of it, the man has changed into a fresh set of workwear dark maple in color, richly-pigmented with caramel pinstriping down the length of the trousers that does compliment his ivory blouse rather well, and Zitao would be comfortable in guessing that there was a matching suit jacket lingering around somewhere nearby. “What - what’s the matter?” He asks as he swiftly kneels by the model’s side, his trouser leg riding up to expose a sliver of calf tucked neatly into dark socks as the sight before him fills him to the brim with worry.

Zitao’s skin has paled considerably, pasty and quite pallid even in the drear of dawn, and he instinctively shakes his head to indicate that he has no response to Yifan’s question. In an unusually paternal move, the back of Yifan’s hand softly meets the skin of his forehead as the man brushes his hair away from his face. “You’re having cold sweats,” Yifan tells him, as though Zitao were not aware of his own bodily functions, but when does he ever get cold sweats from a panic attack? Then again, Zitao does not remember having woken up in a panic - he sure hopes that he’s not coming down with something.

“I don’t feel well,” he whines softly, grimacing as queasiness rises from the pit of his gut, something that constricts his features as he restlessly tosses his head back into the pillow, wanting the maddening sensation to stop.

Yifan shushes him calmly, as he leans carefully forward and places a little kiss upon the model’s forehead before saying, “Stay here, I’ll go get you a cold compress.”

The last thing that Zitao could possibly want in a moment of not feeling well would be to be left alone, and he could cry when Yifan stands and strides away from him as he heads toward the kitchen. Whimpering, his throat contracts as he reaches up to squeeze at his temples, internally begging whatever God may be up there above the skies to please just end his suffering and make him feel well again - what did he do to deserve this? He had been a good boy all year, had been working exactly the way he was supposed to and had been managing to keep his identity a secret for roughly nine months, despite having to sidetrack his formal plans when a certain somebody had suddenly developed feelings for him. What sin must he have committed in the past to currently be repenting for?

_Okay, just breathe, Zitao. Maybe if you just breathe, the nausea will go away. Maybe you’re just nervous about the surgery, and maybe your nerves are making you feel sick. Just breathe._

All of his efforts to will away the sudden sickness fall entirely in vain, however, when Yifan has not yet returned and the nausea returns with an awful vengeance, surging uncomfortably up his esophagus as his stomach muscles clench, and he launches himself from the sofa in a rushed dash past the kitchen for the bathroom, Yifan’s startled figure in the very shadows of his peripheral vision.

It’s certainly not often that he’s sick, especially considering he had been eating close to nothing other than fresh fruits and vegetables for the past several months and had been managing his weight to the best of his ability, given the restrictions of his situation. What’s even rarer, however, is for him to heave into a toilet basin and have _nothing_ come out, the sheer act of being forced to dry-vomit torturous enough to bring tears to his eyes and bubble up a sob from within his throat. Then again, he really hasn’t eaten enough for anything to actually come out.

Having been forced through the stressful purge of dry-heaving, the model grips the basin and openly cries as the thudding of Yifan’s rapid footsteps approaching from the hallway hums in his ears.

“Hey, it’s alright,” the president quickly reassures him as the man sinks to one knee and his fingertips lightly brush the clammy skin of the model’s exposed neck as he gathers Zitao’s hair in one hand, pulling it back and away from the basin. “Shit - it must’ve been that bisque that I ordered for you. I didn’t know that it would have been foul - this is all my fault.”

The rhythmic caress of the man’s fingertips against his nape is certainly soothing, but Zitao still shakes his head in denial, for if he had eaten something that had given him food poisoning, he would have actually thrown it up. As he sniffles and glances up at the man with blurry, glossed eyes, Yifan’s expression melts into sorrow as the guilt takes over, entirely blaming himself for having someone fall ill while in his care.

“You didn’t - ” Zitao chokes out as another eventless gag rolls through him, insides clenching as the nausea finally abates, “you didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing… came out.”

“Let me make you some ginger tea,” the man offers gently as the model releases the porcelain basin and settles back against the bathroom wall, pale and shaky as he breathes calmly to will himself to stop feeling so faint. “It will help with nausea - are you sure that you will still want to go into work today?”

Although he definitely would like to go back to sleep and, preferably, remain in bed for the rest of the day, given that the heaving will most likely come back if it had the audacity to already disturb his sleep. The bisque hadn’t tasted strangely at all - had it really made him sick? The food had been top-of-the-line expensive - Zitao hadn’t intended to notice the prices, but when Yifan had been asking him what he had been in the mood to attempt to eat, he had caught a glimpse of the menu pulled up on the man’s phone screen and would have had a heart attack if he were the one paying. “I have to go,” he tells him, sighing as the nausea dissipates entirely and leaves him feeling weak and used, body strained. “My - my mother is having surgery this Monday, and I need the money to pay for it because the insurance doesn’t cover all of it.”

Yifan’s composure turns delicate, then, as he shifts his eyes away and slowly sighs. Zitao knows that the man is still, technically, paying half of his mother’s monthly bills, despite Yifan never bringing it up since that one, singular occurrence. That being said, it’s much too difficult for Zitao to possibly ask him for even more money, so, rather than take a sick day, he needs to be present for as much paid time as he possibly can.

“I’m very sorry that you have to go through that,” Yifan tells him lowly, as though he had no previous idea that the woman is very quickly approaching her death date, as he gently strokes the nape of the model’s neck to calm him back down, the torturous heaving having fizzled away. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay home? I don’t want you to have to be sick at work, and you have never taken personal time off yet - not even when you had fractured your ankle.”

Then, his eyebrows furrow just a smidge, the crease between them deepening. “That’s because you don’t let us take personal time off when something happens to us,” he points it, for it has always been one of the president’s biggest flaws in his company protocol that even so much as one unexcused sick day were grounds for expulsion and termination of a contract. “I can’t afford to not go to work.”

“I will let you take paid time off just this once,” the man proposes, going against his own highly-constructed rules. “If you fall ill at work, I will have to send you home, regardless.”

It would be lovely if it were that simple, wouldn’t it? It would be lovely if it weren’t a Friday, if it weren’t the very last Friday before his mother’s life-threatening surgery to donate a kidney to Yifan’s mother, if it weren’t the very last Friday that his mother may ever take a mechanically-assisted breath. If the circumstances were like any other, in which he could actually enjoy personal, paid time taken off, and could enjoy laying in bed all day with some delicious, homemade chicken soup. He shakes his head, again, because Yifan does not understand. “I’ll be fine,” he insists because he _has_ to be fine. He can’t afford to not be fine.

This time, Yifan does agree to allow him to attend work today, on the one condition that he will drive him to work and will double-check his temperature both before leaving, and a second time when they arrive. It’s certainly heartwarming to know that Yifan cares about him and worries about him to the extent of requiring that he check on him on a constant basis, but it doesn’t lift Zitao’s mood any.

He only has _three_ days left.

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
During his lunch break, Yifan requests that his vice watch after the firm for an hour, under the guise that he go perform a very necessary errand - a trip to the hospital at a time of day that, during which, he very rarely visits.

He had only previously visited the hospital at this very time once, a time wherein he had requested a private appointment with the ward’s financial department. That had been months ago, and albeit quick and rather painless, had felt much less complex than today’s visit.

The receptionist is just as charming as ever - suave, as she is, with her soft voice and her delicate demeanor that always brightens right up when Yifan come to visit, indicative that she likely houses a crush on him. He’s been aware of it for quite a while now, considering he had only dated women since his one-and-only escapade in the sixth grade and knows how women swoon at the sight of those whom they weaken at the knees for. Nevertheless, she has respected his romantic boundaries thus far and had never made any unwarranted moves toward him, something he is rather grateful for, considering his love life is constantly too strained to branch curiously outward. “What can I do for you this morning, Mr. Wu?” She asks him cordially in that prettily lilting voice of hers, her fingers trudging along her desktop keyboard with rhythmic little clicks.

With studious eyes, her gaze catches the rather appropriately-sized bouquet of creamy, ivory daisies that he holds in both hands, looking unusually lost and, if possible, even a little bit helpless.

“I would like to drop these off if I possibly could bother you with such a task,” he gestures gracefully toward the flowers with a free hand, grazing his thumb over the tightly-knotted ribbon that links them all together. “I would like to deliver these to Mrs. Huang.”

The secretary nods, then, her lips parting in a knowing little exhale of breath, as she glances back at her desktop monitor and begins to type. He watches her intently, borderline-nervously, as she scans the screen before her as though looking for something - as though looking for his name. “Are you on the registry for visitation of Mrs. Huang?” She asks him with a glance back in his direction.

Hesitating, he does, unfortunately, shake his head, because he is very aware that it is simply hospital rules that he must be on the pre-approved registry for visitations. “No,” he tells her, “but I am here on behalf of Mrs. Huang’s daughter.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Wu,” the secretary tells him, then, shaking her head, “but visitation can only be awarded under Mrs. Huang’s son’s consent. You must come back when her son is present to verbally grant you visitation.”

His eyebrows furrow, then, unsure why it is that he must ask for the woman’s son’s consent rather than her daughter’s consent, and sure, he never actually asked Yingtao if he could visit her mother without her at his side, but he found comfort in assuming that, given how devout the girl is for the welfare of her mother, she would appreciate the gesture. Sighing, he does have to admit that he probably should have asked for her permission beforehand. “I apologize, then,” he tells her dejectedly. “What time of day does her son usually come?”

“We usually see him during the evening time,” she tells him cordially. “He likely has work during the day, so it is normally nearly seven-thirty in the evening when he arrives. Would you like me to hold onto the daisies for him and tell him about the delivery, or would you rather come back later when he will be here?”

He truly does not have the time to wait around for the woman’s son to arrive, for his lunch break caps in less than half an hour and he will need to keep an eye on Yingtao’s temperature throughout the day, giving him no second opportunity to leave her side to come to the hospital until after work, at which point it would be useless to even come to ask him if it would be possible to deliver the flowers. He had somewhat wanted the delivery to be a surprise, to warm Yingtao’s heart and to give her and her family extra hope, if at all possible, in lieu of the surgery this coming Monday. To wait around for her brother’s arrival would be to spoil the surprise and tarnish the overall intention.

Sighing, he glances down at the flowers, a dull, unfamiliar ache in the pull of his heart as the opportunity to be unexpectedly romantic slips from his grasp. “Please deliver them to Mrs. Huang’s children when her son arrives,” he declares, handing the bouquet over to the receptionist. “I do not have the time to stay and wait. I am using up my lunch break even as we so diligently speak.”

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience,” she tells him as she takes the flowers. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wu - I will hand them directly to her son when he arrives tonight.”

_It is not a big deal_ , he tells her, abruptly turning on his heel and disembarking halfway through her following sentence. It is not a big deal, because Mrs. Huang will receive them eventually even if it were not immediate. It is not a big deal, because the sentiment will still remain, even if Yifan has to be patient and has to give up the opportunity to interact with Yingtao’s mother directly, despite her unconscious state.

As he slides into the driver’s seat, he lets out a hefty sigh that rolls through his entire chest, a permanent frown gluing itself to his expression. If it were not a big deal, then why does it certainly feel like one?

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
He may not have sort-of-almost-vomited again throughout the course of his shift, but he certainly hadn’t felt any less faint as the day slowly progressed.

Qian had been courteous and helpful, as per usual, but the drowsiness and hairline-queasiness had gotten to a point where Zitao had to completely sit out from the shoot that day, unable to continue without feeling as though his knees may give out beneath him and he may collapse. With respect for the president’s hard work and achingly-crafted creations, he would have much preferred to simply cancel a shoot and choose to sit out than to tear or stain anything and pay thousands of dollars to have the pieces replaced.

Still, despite having to actually cancel a photoshoot halfway through, something that the president just simply does not do, Yifan never once took it upon himself to spark an attitude with the model. Zitao had been immensely grateful that, rather than cradling him and holding him close and possibly, further pressing the queasy feeling bubbling in the base of his esophagus, the president had left him alone entirely and had told him to take it easy, even going so far as to send Qian to the company infirmary for a cold compress to lay on the model’s forehead as he wound back down.

The sentiment had been enough to bring weak tears to Zitao’s eyes, unused to being cared for and worried about so thoroughly, especially in times of hardships, and he wouldn’t have been able to verbally express how much it meant to him even if he had tried.

The guilt of having to shut down one of the man’s likely weeks-in-advance projects, however, had never left him, even as he trudged sluggishly out of the studio with his time card in-hand, prepared to clock out for the day. Yifan’s work was his entire life, so much so that he likely scheduled every single thing down to very minute so that nothing fell out of place, or the chaos that would ensue would fill him with disorder.

Sighing, Zitao shakes his head to attempt, fruitlessly, to ward off the faintness that just won’t leave. He can’t possibly be low on sleep - he hasn’t been getting a lot, maybe an average of five or six hours a night, but he’s certainly had less sleep than that, before. Maybe he did catch some kind of stomach flu - hopefully, if he did, he didn’t infect Yifan.

It’s alright - once he clocks out and finally sits down in his car, maybe he will feel just a little bit better from finally being able to get off of his feet.

“Oh - Yingtao!”

With his time card hovering just over the digital slit on the side of the electronic bulletin board, Zitao minutely startles and glances off to his side with slightly-bleary eyes, wondering who could be approaching him at the late expanse of time of six-thirty-two, over half an hour of overtime past his normally-scheduled shift close. It’s Minseo, waving a hand in the air as though trying to catch his attention before she jogs over with a breezy sway of her hair and delicate, clacking steps in her little heels.

He doesn’t respond and, instead, lets her slow down as she approaches him, heaving out a tired little sigh as she grins and beams up at him with her glossy, shimmer-dusted eyes. “Hey - are you doing anything tonight?” She asks him as her hand dangles itself along the line of her purse strap.

Technically, he is, but technically, he is not - being that it is a Friday evening, Zitao had been planning on changing into regular clothes and staying the night in the hotel tonight all the way through till Monday morning, when he will have to take off of work to remain at the hospital for his mother’s surgery. He had been planning to spend her last days practically glued to her side in case something were to happen, not wanting to be at home if something did occur and having to rush out to drive and, possibly, miss an opportunity because he was too far away.

As he slides his time card into the slot and clocks out, he feels his eyes beginning to droop, as if he were mere seconds away from falling asleep. That’s strange - he has not been sleepy all day. “No,” he manages to tell her, his tongue suddenly feeling too thick and too stiff to formulate words. “I’m going… going,” he clears his throat, unsure of why it’s suddenly hard to speak, “to visit my mom. In the… hospital.”

“Oh,” she comments softly, her smile dissipating. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to grab a drink with me tonight - see, there’s this new bar downtown and Sojin and I were gonna go check it out. Word on the street is they have super cheap draft beers until midnight!”

One of his eyebrows furrows, then, the brush of his thumb against the card he holds feeling unusually fuzzy. Is the physical sensation of touching something supposed to feel numb?

He opens his mouth to respond to her, to tell her, once more, that he really should get going and will have to cancel for tonight, but maybe another night they can grab a beer - but no words actually come out. Rather, he’s pretty sure he releases a garbled string of sounds and vowels that somewhat resemble a sentence, but it must be concerning because the girl’s eyebrows have creased in the center and she has reached a hand forward to touch his arm. It dawns on him, then, that he can’t actually feel her touch - rather, it feels as though she is touching him from outside an inches-thick barrier.

“Yingtao?” She asks, her voice sounding bleary, as though she were underwater. Is it suddenly cold and hot at the same time, in here? “Ying - hey, you don’t look so good. Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

He’s not sure what he needs - a moment ago, he needed to go sit down in his car and have some water, since he hadn’t been able to eat at all, really, throughout the day, because the dry-heaves constantly threatened to reappear and, if he _had_ eaten, he would only be burning the back of his throat as everything would come back up. “ - ‘m fine,” he tells her, brushing her arm with a numb palm as sweat beads at the surface of his skin. “ - ve to… to go…”

Minseo shakes her head in the blurry corners of his peripheral vision and attempts to coax him into sitting. “I really think you should sit down, and I can get you some water,” she tells him above the amorphic blur of the sounds, “and I really can’t let you drive anywhere like this.”

“No,” he shakes his head once more, eyes fluttering closed as his attention wanes. The word _no_ seems to be the only thing his thickened tongue can seem to properly formulate.

He teeters, then, nearly swaying to the side before he steps into it and grounds his weight, the jolt causing a bolt of linear pain to shoot through the side of his head. Something is wrong with him, he’s sure of it, now, because it feels as though his soul is slowly detaching itself from his body as he can no longer feel his own skin where he presses his fingertips into his temples, where Minseo’s hands gently caress him and feel as though she were whole yards away. Is he, really, truly, dying?

He shakes his head to snap out of it, the movement completely dipping over the line dignifying mistake, because his weight tips over, as well, causing him to sway once more. He can no longer hear Minseo behind deaf ears, can no longer hear the gurgled shouts of concern through the thick of the dark waters where he bubbles beneath the surface of his subconscious. He can no longer feel her presence around him, touching him, trying to reach him through the haze as he claws at fogged air to stay above.

When his weight drops, he doesn’t feel a thing, body lifelessly hitting the glassy, polished floor as he completely crumbles and collapses, the time card skidding, forgotten, across the wax.

“Ying - **_Yingtao_** \- !”  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

  
“Are you waking up, now?”

As the world filters back into his conscious in the form of hazed molecules of light, unnaturally halogenic brightness seeping through his eyelids with streaks of strained pain that crack across his head like muted thunder. Wincing, he sighs out in clipped tones of agony as his fingers press into the rigid rounding of his skull, attempting to press the pain away to the best of his ability, and it’s then, as the blinding light floods into his vision and his optic nerves shrivel in misuse, that he realizes he has no idea where he is.

He manages to turn his head just a little bit, for any deeper movements than the slightest shifts streak pain into his temples and registers only familiarly white walls and the speckled, robin’s egg-blue tiles along the ceiling that indicate that he is in a medical facility. What had happened to him? “Where am I?” He asks groggily, tongue feeling quite thick between his lips and he notices, dizzily, that he really wants a drink. If he had to guess, he would very quickly assume that he was in the hospital, likely in one of the small rooms that litter the emergency ward in the back of the facility, an area condemned away from the random of civilization which litters the hallway with peace and quiet.

He also notices, after a less-than-abbreviated pause, that he is not by himself in the room and that, sat beside him in a seemingly less-than-comfortable wooden infirmary chair is an adult woman, one he does not recognize, with a calm expression on her face where she has reclined comfortably into a stand-offishly seated position. One leg has been casually hooked over the other, her white medical trousers arching upwards where a socked ankle peeks out, her hands folded delicately upon one of the arms of the chair. She is not at all intimidating, what, with the soft waves of her thick, dark hair and the gentle divots of her crow’s feet sat upon the corners of her eyes, and instead exudes an aura of safety, gentility, and awareness.

“You’re somewhere safe,” she tells him calmly, warm brown eyes slightly muted beneath the cool tones of the ceiling glow. “You’re here for treatment.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
_“Yingtao!”_

_Tears sting the wrought-abused corners of eyes as she plants both hands on the rounds of the model’s shoulders and shakes, pleads, sobs which couple begs as she shakes harder, pleading with every tendril of deity forgiveness with hot, thick tears in her eyes, a hammering pain in her heart. Her friend does not respond to the brisk jolting of being shaken, does not even so much as stir when the model taps her palm on the girl’s cheek in beats of two, her fingers jittering upon clammy, lifeless skin. “Yingtao,” she begs aloud, unsure of what to do as she continues to attempt to have the girl rouse. “You gotta wake up - okay? You - you gotta wake up, now, this isn’t funny anymore!”_

_Behind her, the clacking of heeled shoes upon the polished, marbled flooring grows increasingly louder as the front desk secretary rushes over amid the fog of the girl’s clouded vision, all flurried motions and brave steps as she tries to calm the model down, tries to lay comforting palms flat across rumpled chiffon that quakes beneath her touch. “What happened?” The secretary blurts out, rushes amidst the panic, and Minseo’s words have all but shredded apart in her outward monologue to become less than chopped syllables, indiscernible shifts of language in garbled tones that mix with her despair._

_“She - ” the model cries as she lifts a hand to conceal her embarrassment, to conceal her sorrows, as though she could salvage either. “I was just talking to her, and - and she was acting funny and mumbling to herself like… like she couldn’t hear me, and… and then she just… she just went down, and…”_

_“Did anything happen previously?” The secretary asks where she’s knelt down, her business trousers prettily flouncy around her ankles in pinstriped elegance, and she lifts her hips just a little bit as she reaches behind herself for her company-issued cell phone hidden within her back pocket as her other hand busies itself upon Yingtao’s forehead. “Had she been sick? Exhausted? Did she eat today?”_

_Teary-eyed, the girl shakes her head, for she does not know. Not a single one of the three possibilities does she know because she had not had the time to hang out with Yingtao today and, therefore, had not had the time to escort her to lunch. Had Yingtao been refraining from eating again when not supervised, or had she fed herself today? Had she slept last night? Was she running a fever? She swears beneath her breath, then, and curses herself, for she does not know and, therefore, she deserves the award for the world’s worst best friend. “Please help her,” Minseo begs wetly, trembling with the lack of palpable knowledge she possesses. “Please!”_

_The secretary nods in rapid succession as she presses the phone to her ear and lifts her hand to place it upon the ridge of the girl’s bony shoulder, rooting her there and promising her comfort. “We’ll get her help,” the secretary tells her quickly, “I promise. She’ll be okay - but first, I have to inform the president. We have to see what he prefers our course of action to be.”_

_The statement makes Minseo only whimper, for she is not prepared for the punishments she may receive for the overlying haze of meaning that clouds the situation. What if the president thinks that Minseo had hurt her, had dared to have the bollocks to strike her and render her unconscious? What if the blame is placed before her, and is made all hers? What if Yingtao doesn’t wake up, and what if Minseo has to stand trial for the promise that she did not do it when she was the only true witness to view the girl’s last awakened breath?_

_She does not pay attention to the words that the secretary utters into the receiver, does not pay attention to the jumbled white noise on the other end of the president likely reacting in the manner that Minseo dreads the most, and instead, she gathers the girl limply into her arms and bawls, heavily, when Yingtao’s full weight presses down upon her lifelessly. Limbs remain both futile and bothersome, lanky and in-the-way as Minseo tries her hardest, through the tears, to cradle in her arms the only true best friend she has._

_The following few seconds happen in rapid succession, one right after the other, as the secretary pulls the phone away from her ear and tucks it back into her rear pocket as the call ends, and she gets not even a half-second of time to begin telling the model what to do next when the thunder of heeled shoes roars from within the rear hall to the left, and Minseo barely manages to clear her vision with the back of her hand enough to make out the shapes of their treasurer and the Recreation stylist from Studio B._

_“Miss Huang!” Jinah blurts out with widened eyes and silky sways of her tawny hair past her shoulders as she rushes over, clearly uninformed and having been on her way down when the secretary had phoned the president’s office, and Minseo’s chin trembles as Jinah’s hands immediately flourish outward shakily as she attempts to figure out what to do. “Shit - what happened to her?”_

_“She collapsed,” the secretary tells her amidst the model’s hoarse crying. “I’ve already informed President Wu and he should be on his way down in just a moment to help us figure out what to do.”_

_Jinah half-sighs and half-scoffs, then, and slides her hands beneath Yingtao’s hair to keep her head hoisted off of the frigid flooring. “What to do?” She asks. “We have to get her to a hospital, Miss Kwon - she could be extremely ill. God, dammit - did President Wu give you any directions of what actions to take, at all?”_

_Quietly, the secretary shakes her head as she glances down at the girl within Jinah’s and Minseo’s arms, growing paler and more pallid with each passing minute. “It would be wise to not waste too much time, though,” she states as Jinah’s vice vision scans meticulously over her, watching for any crack in her composure. “We should get her down to the infirmary for the time being, and the president can meet us there and discuss, with us, what we should do with her next.”_

_“Jiyoung is still there,” the stylist, a woman that Minseo manages to remember by the name of Liyin, tells the treasurer. “She usually stays until the president leaves, just in case anything like this happens.”_

_They agree on the plan to transport the fallen model to the company’s infirmary in the meantime, for, although completely unequipped for a medical emergency involving surgical treatment or alterations of physicality, it will, at least, allow her to receive fluids and painkillers to keep her alive. They agree to keep this ordeal quiet, as it is just passing the harsh edge of six in the evening and the firm is officially closing for the day, which means the remainder of their colleagues who have shifts that last this long will be clocking out, as well. If they keep Yingtao here, they will surely attract unwanted attention and will, surely, be the fault of unnecessarily incorrect rumors that one of them had assaulted her and had rendered her unconscious._

_Jinah and Liyin take over in sliding their hands carefully beneath the girl’s limp, heavy body and manage to lift her off of the ground after an elongated struggle. Sensitive and soggy as a used tissue, Minseo rushes forward to hold her friend’s legs, for she knows that Yingtao is heavy and if it had taken three adult women to effortlessly lift her, then the proof really does lie within the pudding._

_“Don’t worry,” Jinah tells her with a promising expression, the glimmers around her eyes and in her inner corners having faded from prolonged time, once a glorious, pretty pink-tinged champagne now a soft wash o glitters that reflect beneath the lights. “We’ve got it - we can take her. You should head home for the night, Miss Kim.”_

_Blinking, the girl falls quiet as her hands jitter in the open air, empty and alone, when they walk away from her with the model in their arms and round the corner toward the right wing. In times like this, Minseo is reminded that this is far too common of an occurrence in this firm, and more specifically, in this business, itself, one that profits off of the physical unhappiness of women in the name of superficial beauty. In times like this, she is reminded that this is a hyper-capitalist corporation that benefits from the destruction of mental health and physical well-being in the name of immediate media satisfaction. In times like this, Minseo fucking hates modeling, because nobody deserves to suffer in the midst of doing w the things that they love, especially not her own friends and family._

_Still shaken, she finds herself standing and collecting the girl’s purse and time card, knowing that Yingtao will, later, be looking for them, and wills herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She will be okay - Jiyoung is a registered nurse and will know what she is doing, for she has been cradling the president’s employees within her knowledgeable grasp for over ten years. If anything happened to her friend, Jiyoung will be able to help them through it and will be able to pinpoint what it is and will be able to inform them how to fix it so they can have their beloved Yingtao back._

_Minseo does not get far, however, when she manages to take merely several steps toward the hallway where it winds to the right when the blur of human rush floods into her peripheral vision coupling with loud, thunderous footsteps, causing her to instinctively turn. Glancing rapidly around as though blind, the president stares at her with a winded, blown-out expression and tousled hair, his skin having paled amidst his stress. Noticing that the entire scene that had transpired only several moments before had now been entirely cleaned up, save for one shaken, trembling Recreation model, he strides angrily over to her side with his fists balled at his sides and his heartbeat tearing at his veins. “Where is she?” He demands quietly, stepping too close for comfort, if Minseo may say so herself, into her personal space - but here, this close-up, she can view each and every crack in the man’s well-composed armor. Glistening eyes have reddened in his worry, the muscles in his jaw tensed, and she can hear, from this close in proximity, how rapid his heartbeat has become, as though he were mere seconds away from truly panicking. “Goddammit - **tell me**! Where have they taken her?”_

_Jumping in surprise at the sudden ferocity in his voice, Minseo begins to quietly stammer as her eyes instinctively shift away. “I - they… they took her to the… the infirmary, down the hall…”_

_Immediately, the president glances toward the right wing, where the infirmary lies just past those stairs that take them up and sucks in a breath before he dashes away with more loud steps, boisterous enough in nature to match his furious heartbeat. Minseo, still struggling to process everything, finds her cheeks pinking as the underlying tones of the situation piece themselves together._

_Oh._

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

  
_Jinah knows him._

_Both she and Yixing know him quite well, at this point, having worked with him every single day of their lives across the last twelve years, save weekends, in the immediate vicinity with the president on a personal basis. Therefore, despite leading a rather gratuitously private life and completely sealing away his emotions and his past for personal protection, Jinah knows him, and Yixing knows him._

_They know that he struggles in capacity with emotions that stretch beyond those platonic and benign, that he struggles to feign empathy when he, himself, lies within a far higher spiritual privilege wherein he has much less experience with a hunger for sympathy, whether referring to poverty and economic needs or, perhaps, the freedom of a sanctioned group dignified lesser by society. They know that he has never before found himself in a situation where he, a heterosexual-leaning, economically-privileged male from a monetary adoption birthright, had to beg the government for forgiveness and acceptance to simply be given a chance at life. They know that he is not normally one to discriminate when handed a case much different than his own when confronted with poverty and existential despair that requires outside assistance to level out. They know that he has struggled on his own, secretly, quietly, and understands the feelings of those craving the sweet relief of death far more deeply than outsiders would expect, for he had wanted nothing more after his beloved had left him than to be reunited with her once more and for forever._

_What they do not know, however, is how instantaneously the chill of panic had flooded his body and had riddled him frigid to the core as he burst from his office doors in an immediate rush to the nearest staircase. He hadn’t been able to handle the slow of the loading elevator, hadn’t been able to withstand the procrastination that it would have brought when he could not have even been sure if mere seconds were precious when Yingtao’s life was at stake. Not knowing what had befallen the second beloved he had ever held dear, the news had immediately triggered his fight-or-flight response, for he was not about to lose another person to his own ignorance and selfishness._

_Yixing may have had his suspicions, but neither of them knew how his heartbeat raced in his throat as he breezed down the staircases beside the emergency balconies, how every worst-case-scenario had played before his eyes as he nearly tripped over his own worry and heartbreak a total of three times, how his thoughts raced in never-ending cycles as he began to vehemently piece together how deeply he had ruined this girl’s body and mind in his own corporeal perfectionism and, now, was about to lose her._

_Neither of them knew how the sheer thought of the second love of his life even remotely brushing hands with the brink of death had brought bitter tears to his worn-out eyes._

_He hadn’t been able to explain how furious and simultaneously upset it had made him to arrive and to no longer see the very people he had come down here to see, usually indicative in medical facilities of the clean-up of death, and the thought had tortured him so thoroughly that he, instinctively, had gone into a fit of rage. He wouldn’t let the Gods take Yingtao away from him - not like this, and certainly not now. It probably should have come as a relief to know that they had simply transported the girl to the company’s infirmary while they awaited his decision to invest in true medical assistance, but he hadn’t any time to rejoice as his muscles tensed when he burst into a rapid dash toward the infirmary, the minutes valuable and the seconds without gamble._

_When he rounds the corner toward the infirmary, however, he could both blow a sigh of relief and, additionally, lock up with tension when he sees his staff crowding around the infirmary door - sans their fallen employee. Jinah, ever the speculative optimist, turns her head at the front of the line of group influence as his footsteps slow, and her expression widens as she lets out a startled, “President Wu!”_

_She looks far more worried than how Yifan is used to seeing her, her anxiety etched into her irises and pressed into the crease between her brows where they dip. It does not surprise him, as he soaks up the presences of his company, that she had been busying herself with calming herself as she shudders out dry little cries, her pretty face bathed in a sheen of pale worry with a manicured palm pressed to her cheek. His vice is guarding the door, more or less, with a rather placid expression including the haze of slight disappointment mixed with thickened worry._

_“Where is she?” He asks flatly, voice a little bit lower, as he struggles to calm his heartbeat by breathing carefully and steadily through his nose and clenching the muscles in his jaw. “What did you do with her?”_

_“She’s resting,” Vice Zhang tells him calmly, then, with a palm pressed flat to the lengthened door frame as his back rustles gently against the locked wood. “We’ve taken care of her and brought her down here before you arrived, and Jiyoung is attending to her now.”_

_Still blown-out, the man glances to the closed door behind his vice’s broad back and slender shoulders, likely guarded for the girl’s own privacy. Yifan knows that he has no right to barge in on an unsuspecting woman, especially given that he has absolutely no idea what she may be doing nor what state she may be presenting herself in, whether clothed or bare, but this is Yingtao of all people. He would expect, after the several dates that had transpired between the two of them, that sparing her own privacy and embarrassment at for the sake of her safety and health would be quite warranted, especially by the object of her own attraction. Shaken, he lets out a trembling breath and stands his guard as his fists instinctively curl at his sides. “Let me see her,” he quietly demands, not in a position open to debate._

_“I can’t let you do that,” Vice Zhang replies calmly, shaking his head as his voice floats out alongside a calm little sigh._

_“I wasn’t fucking asking,” Yifan spits, then, pressing a little harder to get his vice to break. Truly, he could very well shove his vice out of the way and yank his door open, but how would that behavior seem, being a figure of high professionalism? How would it make his business and company appear, as someone who had lost their well-trained composure all in the name of revolting against their own cabinet? “I want to see her. I need to make sure she is alright.”_

_“She is alright, Yifan,” his treasurer steps forward with a composed hand upon his rigid arm, willing his composure into a slack as he begins to coil himself far too tightly. “She’s quite pale and she’s probably dehydrated, but I can promise you that she is alright. We have to wait out here while Jiyoung sees to her and, hopefully, figures out why she had collapsed suddenly and what we can possibly do to help her.”_

_Angered, Yifan sinks his bottom lip into his mouth as his teeth chew into it, a visual struggle to maintain his composure so as to not explode without intending to. How can he be so sure that they’re even telling him the truth about what happened to Yingtao? He swears at himself internally, for he had vowed to keep a close eye on her all day; yet, as the day progressed, his workload began to stack up and his meetings began to cluster, causing him to lose sight of his side quests throughout the remainder of the evening. Therefore, he had not been able to check on the girl since lunchtime and, clearly, quite a lot had transpired in the mere several hours that he had been occupied. “How did this happen?” He asks between tight lips, his expression rigid. “She wasn’t like this earlier today, she - she was fine today, she even ate breakfast and had a meal replacement beverage. She was **fine**.” _

_Sighing, Jinah crosses her arms over her front. “She collapsed,” she states. “Nobody knows why, but Miss Kim was there and managed to tell me, as best as she could, what happened. Yingtao was, apparently, visibly exhausted and quite out of it, and she began to slur her words and sort of - dissociate from reality, as you could call it. The next thing she knew, Yingtao was unconscious.”_

_As the words stick to his skin, the depth of Yifan’s heartbeat begins to thicken with worry. What if it had been a relapse episode of what had transpired early that morning in Yifan’s hallway bathroom? Had this all been a plan constructed by the hells of the universe since the very moment she awoke this morning? Had her lack of nutrition and proper care caused her to deteriorate to such an extent that she completely dissociated from her body and fainted in his own company foyer? Had **he** been the cause of her collapse all along?_

_“We told Jiyoung before you arrived that we had no outside medical knowledge to give her,” the treasurer continues to softly say, explaining her statements with a gentle flip of her dominant hand. “We had no idea what Yingtao’s prescribed diet was like, nor if there were any things that you had instructed for her to do with her figure that could have caused her to faint.”_

_“That is why you should let me go in so that I may talk to Jiyoung,” Yifan presses gently, having calmed himself down a solid notch-and-a-half. “I can give her all of the information that she desires, so please.”_

_“It is not that simple, Yifan,” Vice Zhang stops him as the man takes a strong half-step closer, drastically decreasing the space between them with his long, lean legs that traverse the floor with a much higher progression privilege. “Jiyoung herself requested that we stay out here in the meantime so that she may perform an overall wellness check to see if she could pinpoint anything wrong without additional information. Meaning, if Jiyoung manages to find something that has the potential to speak for itself, then your assistance would not be needed at all, outside of your directions to possibly transport her to a different facility.”_

_“What is it that you want me to do?” The president’s eyebrows curve downward as the crease between them deepens, his temper beginning to spark back up as his cabinet figuratively begins to turn their back on him and stray away from the path of his own success. “What do you want me to say - huh? If anything at all were to happen to a single one of my employees, it would immediately become my fault because I dictate the rules which they legally have to follow beneath me. Because of me,” he presses a finger straight into the center of his own chest between the lapels of his suit jacket, his blouse beneath it stress-rumpled, “she is malnourished and she is rapidly losing weight because I put her on waist trainers. I put her on a diet, and I forced her into this! She has been unwell for the thick end of several weeks, now, and all I have done is shove my head in the sand and pretend that I did not do anything wrong, but I can’t feign that type of ignorance any longer - that is why, Vice President Zhang, I would expect you to let me in so that I may speak with Jiyoung and help her correct this situation.”_

_“I can’t let you do that,” his vice reiterates sternly a single, final time more, his tone rigid in a way that indicates that he will not continue to fruitlessly bicker back and forth without curbing the conversation to a rightful end. “Yifan - she’s only this damaged and hurt because of you. She will be getting help, we will make sure of that, but do you not realize that you have been the catalyst the entire time? If she truly collapsed from having an extended eating disorder and neglecting her body to such an extent that it gave out on her, whose fault would that be? Whose policies outlined the absolute quote-unquote need for physical perfection, no matter the cost?”_

_“You think I don’t **know** that, already?” Yifan practically roars, startlingly loud enough to cause Jinah to jolt and let out a shriek beneath her lowest breath. Beads of anger-induced sweat begin to make themselves known upon the man’s temples and hairline as his knuckles whiten above where his nails dig into his palms, the fog of his rage far too thick to feel such a pain which has been dulled to mere pinpricks. “Why do you think I am trying to fix it so diligently? I do not know how to reverse time, and I do not know how to fix my most destructive mistakes, but I am doing the best that I can! I can’t reverse the damage that I have done to her, but fuck’s sake, I am **trying**! I may have turned my nose up at every single fucking hint and clue that she was going to deteriorate this far, but that is due to that being the thing that I am worst at, and look! I’m trying to fucking fix it, okay? I want to help her, and you are going to let me inside right this very instant, Yixing, or so help me - ”_

_“Or **what** , Yifan?” His vice replies sternly, his lips pressing tightly into a rigid, pressed line, and his boss’ countenance cracks just the tiniest bit as his advances are shut right down, something that is not often done. “What will you do? Fire me? Fire your own vice president, who had stood right by your side through thick and thin for a decade and a half as you learned the ins and outs of the fashion world and learned how to build your own corporation right from the ground? Will you fire your own vice president, who held you each and every time you cried in your office over not knowing what you were doing, over the grief of losing your almost-wife? Will you fire your own vice president who was here for you through every single thing, who treated you like a brother of his when you needed it the most?”_

_“Shut your fucking **mouth**!” The president snarls, shooting a hand forward, then, against his own will, and twisting it in the crepe of his vice’s buttoned blouse as he restrains himself from throttling him to death. “How dare you speak of something like that? How dare you belittle me to less than a bitch without self-control over their own emotions? I built this firm up from its fucking infant stages, and I gave you the work you so desperately begged me for! You are **nothing** without me and everything that I have done for you, and yet you have the audacity to speak to me this way? You have the audacity to restrict me from doing what I must and helping the people that I fucking care about? How **dare** you!”_

_“Yifan, I just - ”_

_“Holy shit.”_

_Quiet permeating the air in thick, staticky molecules, both men fall silent, then, and turn their heads toward the direction of the sound. Yifan had gotten far too out of hand, letting go of his well-trained control to such an extent that he truly became barbaric, then, animalism enrapturing his senses and the rage-blanketed urge to hit suddenly overpowering. He had gone too far, and he knows that, but Yixing had provoked the absolute worst side of him into coming out and playing with the fire that appeared far too enticing for sinful eyes. Sparks of his anger begin to fizzle into bright meteorites that burn in the stratosphere of his consciousness when he realizes, all along, that Jinah had been listening._

_Her eyes have glazed over with a glossy sheen beneath the ceiling lights with a hand placed over her mouth as though a timid little porcelain doll, petrified between the two strongest opposing forces in the entire firm, one red-hot and malevolent with a strong gluttony for the world to bend and entwine within the crevices of his skilled fingers, and the other much more blue and hazed with lavender tones that presents as a healing force, a mediator, of sorts, and one whom far too deeply understands the quarrels of living and, therefore, is knowledgeable enough to overcome them alone. Not being an immediate partner of the president’s enough to witness his day-to-day emotional fluctuations the way his vice does, Jinah had never truly seen this side of her own boss this close-up, before. Sure, Yifan has had his moments of vehemence where he explodes this way and Jinah has seen those, but those had been over the stake of his own reputation and his own business with clumsy employees and carelessly disrespectful models - but this?_

_This, itself, is a garb that Jinah has not seen him wear a single day in over ten years. “You’re in love with her.”_

_It becomes obvious, then, as pure silence begins to tick on as seconds pass, that something is not right here. A true Yifan move would be to vehemently deny it, to even so much as threaten her own position with this firm if she were to make up another “silly rumor” regarding his love life - that’s right, since Yifan tends to be stingy about romance. Yifan absolutely hated, all these years, being pestered about his dried-out, widowed little flower that he called intimacy after the passing of his wife, something that he had ceased to water and hoe properly and had allowed to weed and dry out and die, the prettiest flower in the garden suddenly  the ugliest patch of crabgrass within sidewalk cracks._

_A true Yifan move would be to shout in her face about how wrong she was, perhaps drag her by her wrist up to his office and scold her there so as to not attract more attention, and verbally teach her a lesson on why and how to keep her mouth shut. A true Yifan move would be to do anything that he possibly could, do anything within his power, to shut down prying eyes and curious words to protect himself._

_However, all Jinah receives on the awaiting end of her verbal misstep is elongated, pure silence. Yifan’s face, beneath the glow of the ceiling lights, flattens out into a hard expression, then, one that steals her absolute breath away. His eyes are practically bleeding with emotion, wet and bizarrely dismal despite how brightly-lit the firm is, and she can practically see each and every telltale word write itself out among the man’s tortured gaze. For a man who struggles to express the softer parts of himself, the intensity within his eyes speaks not only volumes but entire trilogies._

_The lack of a reaction should be enough to gain a rise in Vice Zhang, should be enough to warrant widened, shock-filled eyes and perhaps the soft parting of plush, curved lips, all to stereotypical of their humanitarian vice president; it should be enough to match Jinah’s own surprise with his own, to once again level out the playing field between both twin legs of the president’s cabinet - but the vice does not react. Rather, the look that he presents Jinah with is calm, flat, and well-informed. “Yixing,” she questions softly to fill in the silence that neither man seems to be able to cut through, “how long have you known about this?”_

_She does manage to notice, above everything else, the way the vice president’s facade cracks, then, finally caught behind his trained veneer. Although nowhere near the most secretive fellow in the world, he certainly has quite the mentor to learn from. “A while,” he states calmly, as Yifan’s fingers that had dug wrinkled divots into the woven swath of Yixing’s collar finally slacken, releasing him. “Yifan preferred to keep this quiet, and… just between the two of us.”_

_Yifan, having run out of words to say and having found himself lost and without a clear direction to turn in, folds his arms protectively over his chest to shelter his aura from his partners and to keep himself mentally steadied. He could have expected Jinah to revert to upset and sadness over not having been let in on the secret between them, or, even, could expect her to snap at them and accuse them of sexist microaggressions by hiding information from a woman, as though she were too loosely-lipped, but Jinah - his faithful, trusty treasurer, a friend having stood calmly and quietly by his side for a decade and a half - simply stares at him as though he were the most fragile, premature newborn to have been birthed._

_“Yifan,” she coos quietly, her tone taking on a motherly edge, and Yifan’s heart threatens to instinctively soften around such a tone, “you’re… do you really love her? I am not dreaming and imagining this, right?”_

_The worry that he might outright deny it once again remains, static in the back of her mind as her fingers link around each other nervously, as Yifan simply stares at her with a muddled, neutral gaze, but Jinah could absolutely break down and cry when the president gifts her with a brief, slow little nod._

_With a pathetic little bleat, Jinah brushes past the vice with strong strides and pulls Yifan into an embrace, curtaining her arms over his upper back amid their matching heights - Jinah being a woman of striking height, perfect for intimidation - and sobs weakly into his neck. Beside them, the vice lets out a small, supportive little tisk as Yifan’s professional composure crumbles once more, softened around the people he would entrust his very life with, and lays a gentle palm in the middle of his treasurer’s back. “I can’t believe it,” Jinah mumbles into the president’s clothed shoulder, her smile crooked and her heartbeat irregular. “We’ve waited so long for you to find new happiness, I can’t believe this.”_

_She pulls slightly back, a teary smile written across her lips as Yifan’s thumb massages into her skin calmly, his eyes averting amid his shyness. She had watched Yifan, for ten entire years, claw at the strands of elongated reality in hopes of finding a lifetime partner as he was approaching the years of his mid-thirties, a typical bracket of time for partnership and childbearing. She had never heard the president talk about wanting kids, although she would not exactly put it past him to perhaps have one or two at the most; still, to openly admit to having a relationship with another woman is an absolutely massive foot in the door of moving past old pain. This, with flushed, color-bloomed cheeks and a veneer of pure vulnerability that he most often only shows women with whom he is close and Yixing, is the man that she would have died to work for twelve years ago. This is Yifan behind his walls built up with anguish and widowed agony, the Yifan who unabashedly shows how weak-kneed he befalls around his interests._

_This Yifan, this kind-hearted man with flushed cheeks and a wholly deconstructed countenance outside their infirmary door, is the Yifan that Jinah had been starved to see in the flesh one day more. “Please keep it quiet,” the president mutters to her, then, as his eyes struggle to maintain contact with hers, though she can tell that it is extremely trying for a shy individual. “I would have - I was going to… when I was comfortable enough, I would…”_

_Smiling at how at a loss for words Yifan is for what feels like the very first time, Jinah gets it. “When have I ever turned my back on you, President Wu?” She questions softly with a tender smile, eyes still a little bit wet but heart absolutely filled to the brim with adoration. “We’ve waited long enough for you to reach this kind of an impasse, and you are free to keep it as quiet as long as you would like - forever, even, if that’s what you would prefer. Besides - celibacy is not a good look on you.”_

_“This is why we could not let you inside, Yifan,” his vice states beside them, and Yifan’s softened gaze meets his own from the side. “When you are keeping things from people, you get very angry and you explode, and we cannot have you causing a scene when one of your top models - your own girlfriend - is very sick. You entrusted us to traverse the rights and the wrongs of what goes on in this firm, and that is exactly what we were trained to do and what we will continue to do, no matter how uncomfortable it may get.”_

_That’s right - Yifan had picked his cabinet members with extreme selectivity, searching for people that would be able to stomach his tyrannic behavior for years on end without finding it too overbearing. He had made sure to interview each and every person with the rudest of remarks, with the driest of fronts and the meanest of compliments. Only those who were fit to see through his protective boundary and were able to see through the cracks in his roughened speech were eligible to call themselves KW Staff, people who would protect this firm and Yifan’s own dignity right down to the very earth that they were built upon._

_He had never really taken the time before, among his extended selfishness being far too occupied with his business, to truly appreciate the people who stand beside him through thick and thin, and within that, he finds himself remembering their final interviews like it was just yesterday._

_Yixing lived alone in the east-end in a one-bedroom flat, a studio as most people could call it, one which was littered with stains and the occasional hole in the wall as he had not a single spare penny to his name to put toward renovations and repairs. He was much shyer back then, more strung-out and shaky, and jittered with each and every slap of papers upon the president’s desk, each and every raised inflection of the president’s voice. He was a timid little thing, grappling at the tendrils of life and penny-pinching to make ends simply meet. When Yifan had shouted at him for the very first time after hiring him as an intern, over simply being late with the man’s daily coffee, Yixing had dropped the cup by accident amid his sudden trembling and had watched, dreadfully, as the dark, woody stain began to seep into the president’s creamy carpeting and make itself a nice little permanent home. With some hard verbal reprimanding and a solid year-and-a-half of diligent training later, Yixing was well-composed enough and trustworthy enough to be considered a candidate for the president’s immediate secretary - his own vice._

_Jinah was a fashion student - graduated from a prestigious university, was about to undergo training to become a professional seamstress in hopes of entering the fashion industry, and had been sidelined and swindled into taking business courses by her little nit of a father. She had agreed, although completely disinterested, and had received her associate’s degree in accounting several years later, minoring in microeconomics. She did not have a home to her name, as she had still lived with her parents throughout university so she would have somewhere to survive while financially sucked dry. Although inexperienced and certainly spiritually exhausted from years of extra studying, Jinah was bright and bubbly and overly-confident in everything she did, scoring herself a practically instantaneous position within the firm. She had been a Recreation model for the span of six months, a supernova burning bright among hundreds of little stars, and Yifan had pulled her out soon thereafter and had reevaluated her based on her experience. The next week, to help further alleviate the president’s hefty workload, far too steep for one single person to maintain, she was promoted to treasurer._

_“This is our job,” Jinah tells him flatly, her sharpened eyes brighter than they were before. “We are employed to protect you and your employees from everything that may hurt you - including your own self.”_

_Quietly, Yifan crosses that impasse and stares at his own dedicated cabinet, two people who had relied on him when they needed it the most and two people he had absolutely walked all over for twelve years. He had treated them like dirt, had abused their powers when it suited him best without even so much as properly thanking them for their efforts, and certainly was not deserving of such diligent secrecy and respect so as to be allowed to quietly fall in love with someone._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_Two sets of eyes bore holes into his skull in muted shock, words that neither of them would have ever expected the president to utter amid his mile-high pride._

_“I take advantage of you two far too thoroughly,” Yifan sighs as his fists clench once more amid his stress, as his jaw tenses when he struggles to sort out the feelings flooding his body in rushed, curling waves, crashing upon the shore like the silky sea foam. “I take advantage of everybody, and look what it has caused - I’m… I hurt one of my best employees by just ignoring her, by just being too busy. That had been why I sought out cabinet members like the two of you, to help me cut my workload in half so that I was not so overstressed, but still, I… I find myself overwhelmed. The two of you came to me when you needed me the most, including when you had nothing and had not a tendril of reputation to your name, and I continue to treat you horribly despite that. I know that… that is the thing that I am the worst at.”_

_“Yifan,” Jinah coos in a whispered tone, and the president’s eyes gently meet hers. “Could it be, perhaps, that you don’t just have too much on your plate at any given time, but that your mind is too busy with one specific thing to focus on anything else?”_

_Frowning, Yifan’s composure begins to reconstruct itself back up. “What do you mean?”_

_“Well, you said yourself that the whole reason you hired cabinet members was to slice up your workload for you and thin it out,” she tells him. “Yifan, that was over ten years ago. If you really were still up to your neck in piled work, don’t you think you would have hired more than two assistants? Could it be that you’re not actually too busy but, rather, you’re too preoccupied with thinking about Yingtao’s welfare that you get distracted?”_

_Yifan bites into his lips, for he knows that his treasurer is right. He has become so obsessed with worrying over Yingtao that he had not made any actual time to physically worry. He had been so trapped within his own thoughts that before he knew it, mere seconds had turned into hours and then, he had already wasted a large amount of precious time that he could have been using to make sure that Yingtao was, indeed, healthy and surviving. “She needed me,” he bites out, more to himself than anyone else, “and I neglected her.”_

_“People make mistakes,” his vice confirms with a calming sigh, “but it is how you overcome your mistakes that marks you as a better person. If you have decided that you are calm enough now, I can quietly ask Jiyoung if she is ready to see you, but only if you are not going to erupt again. The last thing Yingtao needs on her plate is more added stress, especially from you.”_

_Flushing, Yifan cannot bring himself to deny the accusation, for it is true - he is far too expressive with his anger when it overwhelms him. “I am calm,” he states gently. “I just want to see her.”_

_Quietly, his vice nods his head, uncrossing his legs and heaving his weight from the doorframe as he stands straight once more. “Alright,” he says with a hand on the handle of the door beside himself. “No going back on your word, President Wu.”_

_Watching his vice depart as the door opens and shuts with dual clicks in the soft atmosphere of the hallway simply cements Yifan’s promise into his own mind, that he needs to behave and learn how to quell the raging beast within him in times of trial. He is bringing the firm and the people around him within it nothing but grief, and he knows that he needs to learn to stop - but how? With due time, he is sure that he could learn how to mellow out his temper if his mother’s surgery goes off without a hitch and she improves and if Yingtao continues tolerating his existence at her immediate side - isn’t that what he always wanted?_

_For Yingtao, he will learn to be better and will learn to behave._

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

  
_Treatment_. He sighs. The hospital is always rapidly efficient with seeing their patients and attending to them, but Zitao would certainly have preferred to, at least, be aware of the entire transportation portion of his visit. Then again, what is he necessarily here for treatment _for_? His anxiety medications are still in effect and are not due for a refill yet, his mother’s condition was as stable as could be despite being unconscious, his ankle fracture had not flared back up at all, which was a relatively remarkable fact to behold, considering it was much weaker than it had been before the fracture - so, what then?

“Could I ask your name?” The woman asks him softly, pulling him effectively out of his reverie as he takes in the creases of age that decorate the crevices of her face, latticing her skin with experience. “When you were brought to us, your name was not discussed and we will need it to check you into the system.”

He manages to swallow around a cottony throat, not willing to sit up from his laid-out position on the medical cot, as he meets her eye and instinctively tilts his head toward her. Her speech was a dignified move that goes right over the model’s head, something meant to softly interrogate without disturbing, and, given the information she now held within her recent subconscious, a questioning felt quite necessary. “Huang Zitao,” he states. “This is… Journey Medical, right? My mother - is in the left wing, at the front of the building. I work here part-time as a dishwasher and a member of the janitorial staff to help pay for her chemotherapy bills.”

The woman nods her head, then, and presents him with a bitter little smile, as though the information perhaps burns her skin as it sticks to it amid the air. “I know of her,” she states calmly, her head falling back just a little bit as her hair curtains down her front, her elevated ankle giving an airy little bounce. “Does she not have any other children to help take care of her, or perhaps a life partner to share, with her, their salary?”

Softly, Zitao shakes his head as he licks over his bottom lip, his throat suddenly as parched as the summer sand. “No,” he tells her. “I am her only child, and - since I am the son, I was expected to always work my hardest for her. It’s alright - I don’t really mind anymore.”

The woman does not respond to that for the heavy end of a while, something that is likely only several seconds but feels like minutes before she soaks everything up with a slowed nod of her head. She had performed a routine check-up when the model had been brought to her in such an unresponsive state, one that had involved checking the model’s vital signs as well as stripping her of her outlying layers of clothing to investigate the state of her body’s composure. She, by protocol, had to rule out each and every single possibility for such a sudden collapse by investigating as much as she possibly could within the boundaries of her medical knowledge.

“Thank you for cooperating with me,” she tells him as her limbs uncross steadily and she stands smoothly from her chair. “I have to take care of something for just a moment, but I will return soon enough, alright? Please continue to rest, and if you find yourself thirsty, I have placed some bottled water beside you on the side table, and when I return, we will discuss your condition and where to go forth with it.”

Not having much else to say, Zitao gives her a small hum of approval as he stares up at her. He wonders where the regular doctor might be - if perhaps it would be Doctor Kim taking care of him and simply leaving one of his monitors in Zitao’s care to keep an eye on him. It wouldn’t be entirely unlike Doctor Kim, someone who always puts the welfare of his patients far above his own. Still, Zitao has an odd feeling that this is not a Doctor Kim case, or else Zitao would already have been introduced to him within the bare two to three minutes that he has been awake. 

Something feels odd, as the nurse steps out into the hallway, and Zitao can’t quite place what it might be. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

  
The first thing that awaits Jiyoung as she returns to the hallway, the door softly clicking closed behind her upright back, is not the equally concerned sets of eyes that peer at her speculatively as they await given information. It is not the blanket of patience that typically shrouds her fellow staff members when something like this happens - for example, last month, little Soyeon from Recreation took quite the fall when she briefly fainted on stage beneath the heat of the lights and the pressure from her high-temperature fever, and the presidential cabinet had been exquisitely patient with the nurse as she relayed just how to nurse Soyeon back to health. 

No, rather, what awaits Jiyoung is the instantaneous rush of footsteps across waxed flooring, thunder that accompanies the squeaking of tinkling rain, and he nearly jumps out of her skin at the unfamiliar scene that unfurls within the next several seconds. 

The president welcomes himself into her immediate vicinity, practically _right_ on top of her where he hovers over her in all of his tall intimidation, his cabinet members shadowing him upon their very toes to stare at her over the broad expanse of the president’s shoulders, curious, starved, absolutely unnurtured with their lack of useful information. Jiyoung barely gets any time to breathe, practically, as the president’s eyes, overflowing with intensity, meet hers as he says, “How is she?”

It is far too fairly standard of a question, one that Jiyoung gets to hear a _lot_ around this firm, being that they only employ women and being that nearly ninety-two thousand of their capped revenue stems entirely from the sales of feminine-presenting couture. Jiyoung cannot possibly count, on two hands, how many times she finds herself being asked _how is she?_ on a routine monthly basis.

“Stable,” she states flatly, wiping her hands as though she had been handling sawdust. “She just woke up a moment ago, and is completely responsive and cognizant, which indicates, to me, that she has suffered no brain damage from this.”

Beside them, Jinah lets out a heavy breath, something that she certainly must have been holding for the thick end of close to a full minute, and practically tears up both from the relief that washes over her as well as the effort it took to hold her breath for such a period of time. “Can we see her?” Is Yifan’s immediate response as his treasurer catches her breath in the midst of the situation before them, and his vice watches quietly with equally bated breath as he floats along a haze of soft surprise at how truly urgent his boss’ voice sounds. It’s both shocking and equally calming to see their beloved president so concerned about a woman again. 

Nevertheless, Jiyoung’s hardened gaze remains within her narrowed, slanted eyes, a front so standoffish that Yifan’s own facade threatens to crack as his nurse does not back down. “Momentarily,” she tells them monotonously, as though she were discussing the uneventful side of politics with them, “but first, I would like to speak with Mr. Wu privately.”

Shocked, Yifan’s eyes have taken on a widened little edge, something that has him emotionally stepping back albeit his physical stance remaining rooted right to the floor, his hands clenched at his sides. Why would she need to segregate him, specifically, to separate him from his cabinet? What could possibly be so secretive about Yingtao that his cabinet members would not be eligible to hear it alongside him? “Why?” He finds himself asking aloud, something he hadn’t expected to do among his thinking out loud. “No - they can stay. Yixing and Jinah are just as much a part of this business as I am, and they are just as much of guardians to my employees as I am, as well. 

“It wasn’t up for debate, President Wu,” Jiyoung shakes her head, then her arms crossing over her front as she leans her weight on the truss of the unwalled vestibule. 

“My opinion is not, either,” Yifan responds with spite in his voice, starting to grow annoyed as his nurse continues to restrain him from obtaining the information he so diligently and impatiently craved. “I do not appreciate your deliberate obstruction of this employment and the rules that wind it in place, so I once again reiterate that whatever you have to say that is so shocking that you would prefer my cabinet to not be informed, you say to all of us or you keep secret. This is just as much their firm as it is mine.”

The dynamic between them shifts practically instantaneously, a figurative divide between staff members wedged harshly into the crevice of viability. The muscles in the president's jaw clench, a physical reminder that he has promised himself to change the way he behaves around women, for he has been far too insensitive when it came to the health of his models that something in him needs to bend and break before anything heals. It is a reminder that he is holding back, that he is refraining from snapping at the company nurse if he can help it, and that he is trying to learn how to deal with his anger himself, no matter how ferocious. 

Yifan may have put his emotional state through absolute hell to learn how to crack through his welded armor, to learn how to sympathize with those similar to him and to learn how to show empathy toward those who deserve it. He may have been blind to the appreciation and the loyalty that his employees have shown him all along, such blindness having caused him to turn ignorant to the forces that opposed his own, but he still managed. All in all, Yifan would classify himself as quite experienced with the ins-and-outs of fluctuating life, having experience in both the cheeriest of moments as well as the most derogatory, painful moments. 

When Jiyoung sighs beside them, however, Yifan finds himself briefly doubting his mountainous experience as the expression on her face changes, as she breaks eye contact with them and glances away as though she would prefer to not say anything over saying what is on her mind. Pressing her tongue into her cheek to make a thick little bulge, her gaze sharpens as it meets theirs. 

“I did what was asked of me, and I gave her a full check-up before she awoke to determine the cause of her faint spell,” Jiyoung tells them flatly. “For one, she is severely undernourished and is as frail as a feather, but you probably knew that already. You also wound her waist trainer way too tightly - it’s no wonder she struggled with eating, when her stomach was being squeezed that tightly, it would be nearly impossible to keep anything down at all, let alone digest anything.”

Silently, Yifan scolds himself; it had been his practiced regime that the model was to follow, which meant that he was the one who had instructed Qian to monitor Yingtao’s weight progression as well as lower the sizing of her waist trainer to continue shaping her abdomen in hopes of giving it a more stereotypically-feminine curve. Yingtao was gorgeous as is, curved waist or not, but Yifan feared flack from his competitors and critics. She was always so muscular and so well-built, but that kind of a body can sometimes be ill-received, and he would be damned if he would allow Yingtao to succumb to childish comments of appearing too masculine. “That is my fault, I apologize,” the man confesses with a sigh, “but is that what was so secretive that you tried to shun my cabinet away?”

Staring at them for another moment more, Jiyoung shakes her head. “No,” she says softly. “As a medical professional trained to assess the human body and what causes it to give out on itself, it is in my protocol to do a full-bodied search when someone is brought to me when unconscious. This is not a matter of their consent, but rather, the necessary steps needed to be taken in order to save their life.”

“Spit it _out_ , Jiyoung,” the vice president growls at Yifan’s side, then, the tension much too thick for his personal comfort. “We don’t have all day.”

The tone in his voice must set something off within Jiyoung, something dark and quite red-hot in nature that she must keep condemned most of the time, for her demeanor practically snaps then as the sharp edge to her gaze fires up in a way that reminds him much of Yifan, himself. It is a sign that she had been holding herself back and had been sugarcoating her thoughts, but Yixing does not have time for childish play. 

What Yixing hadn’t been anticipating, however, was accidentally and unknowingly uncorking the carbonated bottle.

“I had to disrobe her to examine her body, and physically, she will be perfectly fine so long as she begins eating again and stops her waist training,” Jiyoung spits out between tight lips, glancing from eye to eye of each of her impatient visitors. “But that model is not who you think she is.”

Silence settles down upon them, and Jiyoung had fully and wholeheartedly anticipated that exact reaction, for how could she not? She knows what she saw and knows what she has become too aware of within the span of her examination. “What are you talking about?” Is what the president responds to her statement with, his voice tight in a state of pressed confusion mingled with a little bit of true disbelief, run a little bit thin through the nurse’s monologuing. She pities Yifan, however, for he is an intelligent individual but truly must have become blind with admiration to not have cracked the code sooner than she. 

“That girl in there?” The nurse asks with a quick jab of her thumb behind her, motioning to the locked wood. “She’s not a girl.”

Jiyoung had waited, as patient as the blooming oak, for the model to awake. Her blood pressure was stable, a solid ninety-five over sixty-two, her breathing and heart rate both steady, as she silently slept away in the medical cot as though she hadn’t just collapsed as her body officially gave out beneath her. As a nurse, Jiyoung had seen quite a bit in her day that would have caused an unexpected faint - she had seen stereotypical circulation restriction, something that was more popular back in the day as compared to recent, wherein models would train their limbs with elasticized bands in hope of slimming them down, not realizing that they were, additionally, cutting off the flow of blood to their brains in the process. This was done away with around six years ago when Yifan made the knee-jerk decision to replace it with regulated diet-and-exercise to slim his models down. 

As the competition grew, however, so did the cutthroat nature of this kind of an enterprise, and the president was forced to narrow down and experiment with his methods and means of exploitation, including bringing forth the technique of waist training as well as specialized diets, rather than a consistently flat restrictive diet across the board, he wanted to customize the eating habits of each girl depending on their metabolisms as well as their body type. Yingtao had a much higher fat-burning metabolism than most, due to her active past with gymnastics and martial arts training, which meant that she would have had to be on a less intensive diet to maintain her muscle mass that was so rarely seen in his thinner, less-active models. 

However, Yifan had never taken into account the fact that Yingtao’s body could have been so unusually built and structured in such a nonconforming way due to her not being… a woman.

Fists clenched and jaw tension through the roof, Yifan’s aura tips the scale and makes a full-fledged nosedive toward _enraged_. “What do you mean she’s not a girl?” He spits out, rhetoric question after stupid rhetoric question coming to mind, all questions with pre-existing answers. “What the fuck are you _talking_ about?”

Then - Jiyoung _scoffs_ , a move of direct disrespect - and both Jinah and Yixing fall victim to her conversation with fallen expressions and defeated facades, no longer able to hide their surprise. “Do I need to spell that kind of thing out for you, President Wu?” She asks coldly, no longer catering to his wordlessness. “In case you haven’t noticed, your girls don’t normally carry a penis and two testicles, wrapped up in their undies and tucked back so you won’t suspect a thing, and your girls don’t normally directly misname and misgender themselves when a stranger asks who they are.”

A muted little gasp spills out of Jinah’s throat as her hands find the president’s upper arm, holding him as every muscle in his body begins to clench and pull taut as his temper finally ignites. “Mr. Wu,” she whispers carefully, making sure to keep everything in this situation as calm as possible, for perhaps Jiyoung is _lying_ \- perhaps she is testing them, is toying with them to see how they react to such a fabricated diagnosis. “Maybe she’s just confused - didn’t Yingtao say she had a brother? Maybe… maybe this entire thing was just misconstrued, and maybe - ”

“There is no brother,” Jiyoung interrupts as she hoists her weight off of the wall and takes a half-step closer, a move that causes both secondhand cabinet members to back up in defense, as Yifan stands rooted right to the floor. “That _is_ the brother.”

Lips pressed tightly together as every single tendril of anger in his body alights all at once, Yifan practically shoves his assistants into the adjacent walls to try to breeze right past them and force himself into the ward - when Jiyoung does not move, something that people normally do not do when Yifan is angry. They are normally frightened of him, intimidated by him, too scared of being scorned or publicly embarrassed with expulsion to stand up to him, so why is Jiyoung not fucking _moving_? “Get out of my way,” he barks right into her face, voice dripping with hatred and the desire to prove her wrong. “I need to see her for myself.”

“President Wu,” Jiyoung refutes carefully, “he is still very weak and will need a moment to build his strength back up. You will only upset him.”

“I _said_ ,” he _snarls_ , grabbing her by the arm and yanking her away from the door with all of his strength, something that causes the woman to tottle and gasp and causes Jinah to squawk out in surprise as she catches the nurse in her arms, positively stunned that Yifan would do such a thing, “to **_move_**.”

Yifan does not see shapes within his anger as he bursts through the infirmary door, seeing only red as animalistic, untamed eyes seek out their awaiting target amid the fog, hungry for confrontation. No, there is _no way_  that Jiyoung is telling him the truth, he declares in his mind as his vision finally scans over the model’s frail little form within a cot by the far window, half-hidden with a rod-strung ivory curtain. There is no way the same girl who had blushed like a freshly-ripened tomato when she had been measured for the very first time, the same girl who he had just held in his arms and kissed beneath the drizzle of rain this morning, the same girl who put him emotionally through hell and back just to clarify his resolve, had _lied_ to him _all this time_. There is no way the same girl, who supposedly lied to him, who lays here before him as his instincts switch from humane to barbaric and urge him to attack, a blind rage he hadn’t felt in ten years, had been a boy the _entire_ goddamn _time_. 

“Mr. Wu,” the model croaks out softly, glancing up at him with those bright, beady eyes and those same curved, slightly-bitten lips that he found himself kissing each and every day, the same person he awoke to this morning and worried about all day. No, surely Jiyoung was _lying_. 

Out of the corner of his blurred gaze, he catches sight of something laying on the cot-side table, something pale nude in color and furled up like fallen tapestry, something that Yifan recognizes as one of the waist trainers that Amber tailors for his models. His eyes widen a little bit as the haze of rage minimally dissipates, allowing him to see a little bit more clearly, and it’s true - Jiyoung had stripped the model from head to toe, he realizes, as he soaks up the sight of the model, laid in the cot, _shirtless_. 

Jiyoung would not have left a female model in the nude, he notes carefully, as the model moves to sit up, unaware of the current situation, and Yifan stares straight at two very flat, very masculine breasts that make up a typical male chest, entirely devoid of any mammary tissue. He would normally play it off as typical of weight loss, since most girls here fall into the a-cup to the b-cup category after losing their weight, except that the model’s nipples would be larger if that were the case. If her skin had stretched out with weight gain before the weight melted, her nipples would be noticeably more sizable than they are - so why are they _not_?

Inhaling sharply through his nose as his pulse heads toward racing, his blood pressure skyrocketing beneath the thrum of his skin, Yifan’s resolve snaps as he stares down at his loyal employee, and newly-declared girlfriend, in horror, abhorrence, and disbelief.

The model’s expression vanishes quietly, as she - no, _he_ \- glances downward at herself - no, _himself_ \- and notices how bare he has become since falling unconscious, hands diving into the sheets laid across his body as he balls them up in his fists and covers up his own nude shame. “Mr. Wu, _wait_ \- I can explain,” he blurts out in that same saccharine, somewhat-feminine tone that Yifan has grown so accustomed to, has _fallen_ for both socially and romantically, and the thought that not only had Yifan fallen for the gender he does not prefer but had been _lied to_ about it, brings nothing but seething anger and vile hatred to the surface.

Briskly, he immediately turns on his heel and practically storms out of the infirmary with loud, echoing steps, each one across the glossed floor a reminder of how betrayed he feels, how angry he has become, as the model scrambles to his feet behind him with meaningless, deaf apologies tumbling out of deceitful lips. 

How could he have been so _stupid_? How could he have allowed himself to become so blind with the desire to replace his late wife that he hadn’t seen all of the signs? Yingtao always shielded her front from the spying public when she was not allowed to change in the shoe closets - regardless of if Yifan ever reacted or not, he wasn’t an idiot, and he knew what she was doing in there. It would have actually been _less_ surprising if she had been having sex in the shoe closets with how much time she spent in them, but changing in private? _Nobody_ did that around here! How could Yifan have not seen that?

And then came the almost-there intimacy they always shared, how Yingtao would always pull away at the very last minute and would skip out on sex every single time it came forth in the conversation - who _does_ that? Yifan has never been turned down by a woman whom he sought out sexually, has never been told he can’t have any and has never turned down some when it was offered to him save for his spat with Jessica in order to keep his relationship with Yingtao steady and unhindered. If Yingtao constantly dodged the topic of sex, regardless of how many dates they had been on together, was that perhaps not because of the feelings she didn’t have for him, but rather because she couldn’t show her arousal around him without getting caught? How could he have been so blind? 

His cabinet attempts to stop him as he storms past them and leaves them quaking in the breeze of his steps, an unmovable freight train on a mission to storm straight to those elevators and fire the model once and for all, for absolutely _nobody_ makes a fool out of him and gets away with it! She is _so_ fucking fired that Yifan can taste the ink on the very tip of his tongue as he would void her contract, would stamp it for proof and allow the ink to dry before he would destroy the contract in his paper shredder. Nobody leads him on this way and gets away with it - absolutely not, not again. 

He doesn’t get very far, however, when he feels hands wrap themselves around his left arm, curling into the twill of his blazer to pull him back and perhaps root him to the spot, an action that triggers his fight-or-flight response once more as he jerks his arm back and whips around, prepared to pounce like a feral cat.

“Mr. Wu,” he is told in that familiarly soft tone, the model clutching his sleeve in his little manicured hands, much more clothed than he previously had been when laid in the cot after having been physically examined, despite his weak knees that bend his legs at their joints and keep him slightly off-center. “I can explain,” he repeats, hoping to break through the barrier between them and reduce Yifan to his palpable state that he succumbs to when around the one he loves, but not this time. Yifan will not let this person toy with him any longer. 

“Do **_not_** touch me!” Yifan roars right into his face, causing the model to jerk backward instinctively as his heart leaps in fright. “Don’t you _dare_ touch me with those hands ever again.”

Breathing carefully, the model wills the situation to a forceful calm. “I can explain,” he repeats thrice, hands held up in innocence as the beast stood before him huffs and puffs with such a ferocity that he could likely blow the entire building down if he were not careful. 

“Explain what?” The president questions him in less of an abrasive tone, something still just as hostile but less forceful as he tries not to cause more of a scene than he already has. “Are you trying to tell me that you can explain how you could lie to someone for nine months and lead them on at every turn? Are you trying to tell me that you can explain how you fooled the _entire world_ into putting their faith and trust into a fictional version of yourself?”

Caught red-handed, Zitao can do nothing but scoff and attempt to brush it off, as though the man were simply crazy. “Mr. Wu, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he chuckles nervously as he tries to sway the opinions of the eyes on him, but he knows that the avail if any were possible, would only fall in vain. 

“Do _not_ treat me like I am fucking _stupid_ , Miss Huang,” the president shouts at him, the veins in his neck bulging as the muscles cord, every possible physical representation of the man’s anger culminating all at once as his skin begins to heat. “You have _no idea_ what I'm talking about? What, do you know _nothing_ at all? You don’t know _anything_ , apparently?”

Confused, Zitao begins to tremble as his chest begins to heave, fingers falling down at his sides as his anxiety heightens and clouds his breathing, tears threatening to bubble at the surface. “What do you mean?” He asks punily, not wanting the haze of happiness he had ridden on for the past several days, with Yifan practically puttied beneath his fingertips at every turn, to end. 

“You _know_ what I mean,” the president states harshly, voice much too loud, and Zitao becomes all too aware of the many sets of eyes watching the scenario unfold, the man’s cabinet members peering at him surreptitiously from the entrance of the hallway where they’re mostly hidden behind the corner wall, his sole work friend having hovered over the front desk with the secretary and another stylist to calm her down, and Zitao finally remembers what had transpired and what he had done.

Oh, _fuck_. That nurse wasn’t a hospice nurse, was she? That nurse was a company-employed nurse - she _had_ to be - and Zitao, without thinking, gave away his true identity to her before his full consciousness could return to him. They _tricked_ him. 

“You lied to me,” he admits in a small tone, a little bit shocked that Yifan’s own cabinet would pull such a move on him - on _him_ , of all people. 

The statement is not well-received, despite the pain in Zitao’s chest, and the fire in Yifan’s gaze only grows before him as the man does something that Zitao would _never_ expect him to do, something that has him spitting in shock and curled up on the ground as though a puny little animal, wounded, forgotten.

Yifan smacks him, right across the cheek, a backhanded blow so rough and so harsh that it resonates loudly like a crack of wild thunder directly overhead, something that shakes the foundations of both Zitao’s resolve as well as the building which they stand upon today, and the tears immediately begin to fall. “ _No_ \- _**you**_  lied to **_me_**!” Yifan bellows out, absolutely _terrifying_ and fully demonic in a way that Zitao has never seen him be, eyes darkened with antipathy. “ _I_  busted my ass around here sticking my neck out for you, helping you _whenever_ you needed it, and _this_ is the thanks that I fucking get? Let’s get _one thing_ straight; I made it _crystal_ fucking clear what my targeted demographic was for this job and who I was hiring - _**crystal** fucking **clear**_!”

Beneath the pain of the strike and the weight of his voice, Zitao whimpers from his crumpled spot on the floor. “I know,” he attempts softly, “but I needed the money, Mr. Wu - ”

“ _So **what**_?” The president snaps loudly, echoing around the foyer, and Zitao can hear - bless their hearts, for he wishes he could hug them - the girls to his right by the front desk let out squawks of surprise. “There are _thousands_ of other jobs out there that you could have applied for! Are you happy, now, that you’ve broken the fucking law? Are you _happy_ that you’ve lied to me and used me to your fucking advantage? You ought to count yourself as lucky as the stars that I don’t put you behind _bars_ for impersonation!”

Soggy, the boy’s lips begin to tremble. No, this can’t be happening - not here, not _now_. He can’t lose _everything_ just like this. “I’m sorry,” he bleats out pathetically, unable to even so much as move a muscle in fear that the man will strike him again. “Please, Yifan, I’m - ”

“ _ **Don’t** call me that_!” Yifan shouts in much more hoarse of a tone than before, and he could be deceiving himself but if he were to listen very intently, he could swear that the president’s voice crackled around the edges, as though he were losing his grip. “Don’t you _dare_ fucking say that name again - you have _no right_ calling me that anymore!”

The man who stands before him in all of his otherworldly rage, a demon vacationing within a six-foot human body, is not the Yifan that he has grown to know and love, but rather, the Yifan who bottled up and corked all of the hurt and the agony that he felt having to say goodbye to the love of his life, the Yifan who tortured himself for an entire decade and brought himself nothing but pain and unhappiness, and the Yifan who subjected himself to yet another tragic heartbreak all because Zitao couldn’t help himself but make Yifan happy. 

Far too terrified to attempt to stand up and reconcile what he knows to now be a fruitless effort, Zitao lowers his fingers from his face and simply leaks where he stares up at the man he loves - at the _demon_ that he loves - as bright red bruising blossoms upon his cheek. “It’s not what you think,” he offers one last time, for if Yifan could just sit and listen to _why_ he had to lie and enter this job as someone he wasn’t, then he would understand - 

“ _How is it not_?” Yifan spits out bitterly, his expression twisted in hatred that pulls his eyebrows downward and sharpens his gaze as his lips press into a tight, cracked line. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that not only do we not _hire_ boys here,” he grits out right into the model’s line of sight, “but that I do not fucking fall in _love_ with boys, _either_!”

Unable to process the words, Zitao’s eyes widen as the tears continue to fall, this time not tears of pain, but rather, tears of the ache of heartbreak and lovelorn despair. Yifan loves him? Yifan really, truly, loves him, despite everything Zitao has put him through in nine months - and Zitao, as selfish as ever, really had the nerve to trample all over his fragile little heart like it was forgotten waste.

The thought brings a sob bubbling to the surface as Zitao claws at the splintering shards of their relationship, grappling for any little glimmer of hope as to why it could perhaps be salvaged. He can’t hurt Yifan like this - he can’t lose Yifan like this, not here, not now.

The president glares down at him as though he were the vilest shit at the bottom of his shoe, as though he were chewed gum that the man accidentally stepped in and could not scrape off, and the look absolutely breaks Zitao’s heart. How could the same man who had stared into his eyes and his pure soul as though he were the most precious gemstone to behold, see him as the scum of the earth? 

Around him, the foyer falls silent as every single one of their audience guests stares at them with pale, drained faces as ghostly as the midnight moon and slackened expressions of shock. 

Teary-eyed, Zitao cannot find it in himself to quell his trembling as he stares back up at the love of his life, praying for one last chance, for one last opportunity to explain everything and make amends. Yifan _has_ to love him enough to give him that time of day, right? “Mr. Wu,” he begs quietly, the tears thickening his voice and causing it to peak in pitch as it cracks, barely able to form any sound. “Please…” 

This time, however, it becomes very clear that the president’s resolve has worn completely thin, as he does not offer him the last rebuttal, does not dignify himself with the last word, but rather, with whitened knuckles and a jaw so tense that Zitao would fear for his teeth - he glances away and huffs out the breaths he had been holding. “Get out,” Yifan grits out behind his thickly-built walls of protection once more, walls that Zitao had worked so diligently to deconstruct. “I never want to see your face around here again.”

The object of his undying affection storms away in his stiff countenance, figuratively shutting down and locking himself away from the entire world as he turns the corner for the stairs and the dam that Zitao had been struggling to keep patched together finally breaks as he sobs out in agony with his fingers curled upon the glossed floor.

He’s ruined everything - he would have had the perfect opportunity to tell Yifan the truth if he could have just waited until this Monday, until Yifan would be there to hold him through his mother’s surgery, until he could find the man in a position so affectionate that he would be understanding of the truth. Zitao had to lie - he _had_ to - but he could have softened the blow. This is all his fault, and not a single one of the people staring at him intently, unsure if they should move toward him to help him, deserve to even so much as lay eyes on him. 

He deserves to die for this, doesn’t he? His mother is going to die, anyway, even if he were to continue to work through Monday, even if he were to continue lying and continue giving his all to give a viable performance. 

Quietly, he manages to make out the soft pitter-patter of low-heeled shoes, feminine and gentle in nature. “Yingtao,” he hears, and the name burns white-hot as it sinks onto his skin. “Are you… are you really… a _boy_?”

Sniffling, Zitao cannot even manage to meet Minseo’s eye as he thinks over how many people he has betrayed, how many people he has lied to, and how he’s put both Minseo and Yifan through absolute hell all for someone who was in disguise this entire time. He shakes his head with buried eyes and stammers through the sobs, unable to glance up at her or even stomach existing around her, for she deserves much better than someone like him. She deserves friends who do not lie to her, friends who do not torture her with secrecy and who are able to be truly naked with her, bearing their raw souls to each other, for that is what friendship is.

If he were to die right here, right now, would Yifan even care?

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

 

The rest of the evening melts away entirely in a blur. 

Zitao doesn’t entirely remember who had brought him home, for he hadn’t been able to find it in himself to pay that much attention as someone hoisted him off of the ground, wrapped a thickly-knit autumn coat around his shoulders, partially to warm him up from being so bare and partially to shield him from more shame as more and more eyes glued themselves to his retreating form, and brought him outside. He doesn’t quite remember whose car he had gotten into, nor who had whispered apologetic words into his ear as they smoothed comforting hands up the gooseflesh upon his arms, but then sentiment that still lingers feels a lot like something Minseo would do.

Thinking about it now, however, only brings tears to his eyes, for he never in a million years would deserve to be friends with people like Minseo, and would certainly never deserve to be able to love people like Yifan.

He finds himself laid on his couch after his anonymous partner had brought him safely back into the familiar arms of his best friend, as Zitao cried and soaked the apexes of the man’s shirt with thickened tears and heated anguish, something that Luhan always knew would be coming. Luhan had thanked his delivery person, had wished them well and had brought Zitao over to the living room to gently and carefully deconstruct the feminine facade that he no longer had any permission to wear. Then again, Zitao would never be remotely worthy to wear Yingtao out ever again. 

Now that everything has considerably calmed into a rather uneventful lull, the wetness of Zitao’s tears has stopped as he stares down at the tracks of his extensions laid out on his coffee table, his official goodbye to this new side of him. 

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Luhan mumbles to him as he ever-so-gently guides the model’s chin to the side to wipe a makeup cloth across his supple cheek, barely even gripping him as though he were a premature newborn freshly out of the womb. “If you were sick, you should have called me and I would have picked you up from work if you didn’t want to drive. You shouldn’t work when you’re sick.”

With glistening cheeks and a slightly runny nose, Zitao cannot even bring himself to shake his head in denial, for although he knows that simply coming home from work would not be enough to fix what is wrong with him, it is not like arguing about it will fix anything that he’s done. He gazes absentmindedly forward with a blank, worn-out expression, darkening his under-eyes and puffing up his lids as he stares at nothing, dissociating from reality. Nothing matters anymore if he is going to lose not only his mother but the only person to truly love him for who he is; having been broody and melancholy and gray for so long did nothing but deter people from him due to his lack of personality, but now? 

Zitao has learned _so much_ about the outside world, has learned so much about the divide in hardships between the binary genders, about the stark difference between what women go through and what men go through. He has learned so much about how to truly appreciate the people around him, for you never know what they might be going through in their minds and their hearts by their outward countenances, and to never judge a book by its cover. 

It’s ironic, really, how he would not judge someone based on their outward appearance, yet here he is, losing every single good thing to ever happen to him because of his outward appearance. “It’s all my fault,” he croaks out softly, dressed all in his own masculine sleepwear in his own muted gray, sat in his own masculine space with his best friend’s hands in his own masculine hair. “I fucking did this.”

“It’s _not_ your fault, Tao,” Luhan stresses a little bit sternly, voice still soft in fear that he may upset the crumbling figure that sits beside him, but Zitao is far too fragile of a soul to allow him to self-deprecate to this extent. “You tried your best and you did everything that you thought were the right things to do, and that’s all that matters.”

Then, Zitao’s head turns to him slowly as weathered, reddened eyes meet his own, and Luhan’s voice catches in his throat at the sight, at how obvious it is that Zitao has completely given up. “He confessed to me,” he mutters hoarsely. “He… he told me he _loved_ me while screaming at me, Han.” And it should be wonderful, should be _lovely_ to be adored and to have your feelings returned, but the story is more complex than that and is not a simple one-way street. As tears gather at the brim of his lashes, Zitao’s chin gives a fine little tremble, one that tips him gently over the edge as more tears flit down glossed cheeks. “But he said,” he gulps, tone thick with upset as he practically chokes over his own sadness, “that he would never love a _boy_.”

Lips parting, Luhan’s heart splinters right in two, for how could someone say such a thing to another person - let alone someone as beautiful and as wholesome as Zitao? He pulls the boy into his arms before he even processes it in his mind, cuddling his best friend close as he buries a hand in his hair and tucks his face into his neck, for Zitao is not what this man makes him out to be. Zitao is wonderful and tender and lovable in every way, and it kills him to know that his best friend does not see himself that way. 

“What a fucking asshole,” Luhan spits above the fall of Zitao’s hair, something that only causes the boy to croak out thicker sobs as he shakes and falls apart in the arms of the only person left on this planet who truly loves him - someone, who would never leave his side no matter what he did.

He only has two days left.

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

  
He knew it. He _fucking_ knew it.

The whole time, something in the back of his mind had been telling him not to dispose of his engagement ring, or else, something would go wrong. Something would tip the scale toward malevolent and he wouldn’t be able to quickly pick up the pieces from the shattered aftermath, and he _knew_ it. 

A ring - one that he holds in one supple, broad palm adorned with pinprick marks from sewing and reddened divots and blistered callouses from tailoring - that was once a symbol of eternal happiness has now become the symbol of eternal damnation, something that has placed some kind of a hex upon him and disallowed any intimate progression without it falling victim to the curse. 

How could she lie to him like that? How could she _use_ him like that? 

How could she spend all of her free time with him like that, holding him through his insecurities and kissing him over, and over, and over again, threading her hands in his hair and stroking him the way a true lover would? How could she do such a thing all while knowing she was lying to him? How could she pretend to love him and lead him on all while knowing how traumatized he’s been when it came to romance? How could she know how _hard_ it was for him to move past his pain and try again, just for her, and yet _still_ lie to him?

Angered and blind with rage, he finds himself launching his arm forward and violently throwing it across his room, paying absolutely no mind to how it shatters a vase upon his hallway-side table by the light switch, the cracked shards of porcelain clattering loudly to the floor. 

Even smashing his own hard-earned belongings does absolutely nothing to quell the pain that he feels in his heart.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao does not return to Yifan’s house to retrieve his own car, for he knows very well that he would not even be able to stomach the idea of even so much as driving past Yifan’s very street. Ever the helpful friend, however, Luhan offers his services for that the very next day, on a beautifully bright Sunday morning, and outlines his plan to take the city’s transit bus to Yifan’s street with Zitao’s car keys and bring it back to its rightful home. Sniffly and barely-rested at all, Zitao allows him to do what he wants, on the one condition that Luhan does not say a thing to Yifan if they come face-to-face.

He wouldn’t necessarily put it past his best friend to strike Yifan for what he did to him, but Zitao knows that Yifan’s reaction was absolutely warranted - he did lie to him, for his own gain, and did lead him on while knowing what he did. This is more his fault than it is Yifan’s fault. 

To get his mind off of it, Luhan had left him with some fresh congee to pick at so that Zitao could have _something_ in him, for medical facilities were not typically open on the weekends for new appointments. If it were so much of an emergency that warranted having to rush him to the emergency ward, that was a different story, but Zitao would not be able to see his general practitioner until tomorrow morning, before his mother’s surgery. 

It’s still just as hard to eat as anything else, but he manages. It’s a little bit easier to swallow it, being that it is practically starch-thickened liquid, but it still takes him a while to down such a consistency. Then again, Luhan would never rush him nor pressure him into eating it quickly, and Zitao is very grateful for that since it can be very hard to manage your mental health as someone with an eating disorder when you constantly feel under pressure. With his gentle encouragement and lack of pressuring force, it makes coping a lot easier. 

Without the waist trainer on, it also makes it a little bit easier to eat now that his internal organs are not constantly being squeezed fully shut, now that his innards have room to breathe and shift themselves around once more and his hunger is no longer being physically restricted. Still, he cannot find it within himself to feel anger toward Yifan or his management for forcing him into weight training, as this is an extremely competitive business and when push comes to shove, Yifan, as a business owner and a successful, thriving couturier, needs to shove to get ahead and designate a lane for himself in this world. 

As he’s tilting another meager spoonful of the congee past his lips, the familiar chime of his doorbell rings in his ears, something that draws his eyebrows downward. Luhan isn’t typically one to ring the doorbell if he knows that Zitao is at home waiting for him to return, and he also has a copy of Zitao’s own house key to allow himself in, so who could be at the door?

It could always be a prank, however, but Luhan is not really the type to pull pranks on Zitao when he knows that he is in no mood to laugh. 

He wraps his blanket tightly around himself and sets his spoon beside the bowl as he slips off of the barstool to head toward the front door. It’s just around lunchtime, which means that the mail usually comes around this time, but had either of them been expecting packages? Zitao has not been able to take anymore commissions for his photography as of several months ago, far too busy with work and trying to manage seeing his mother with raking in his income as well as spending time with Yifan, trying to kill three birds with one stone proving far too strenuous to even attempt to kill four birds. 

When he opens the front door, however, it is not Luhan who waits for the homeowner’s arrival behind the painted wood.

“Zitao, right?” Kevin asks him softly, his hands tucked comfortably into both of his jeans pockets. The expression on his face is a little bit tense, a little bit empty, and it makes Zitao feel stark naked to have someone who had met him for the first time as _Yingtao_ not address him that way. The model finds himself out of words to say, as he can’t exactly think of Kevin as one of the people who would show up at his door, let alone know his actual name or his actual home address. “Can I come in?”

“How do you know where I live?” He finds himself questioning in a mumbled tone. When Yifan had declared the model’s permanent expulsion last night, Zitao had assumed that he would be completely wiped from every single playing field having to do with him, from the company databases to even Yifan’s own heart. 

“The company log,” the man states simply. “Look, I promise I wasn’t stalking you, or anything like that, but I really do need to talk to you. I didn’t know where I would be able to find you, so I figured that the best place to look for you would be your own home.”

Softly biting his lip, Zitao’s fingers spread upon the truss of his door frame, having wanted to both rush right back into Yifan’s arms and cement all of these wonderful memories into his permanent recollection and, additionally, forget all about the past year and never see a single one of them ever again. Perhaps he would have even moved out of town so as to not accidentally cross paths with them in a supermarket or even - if he were unlucky - the sidewalks along the intersections downtown. Still, Kevin never meant any harm to him, so what could possibly be the harm in just hearing what it is that the man wants to say? “Alright,” he mumbles tiredly, stepping back to pull his door further open and grant Kevin permission into his apartment. 

As the man lets himself quietly in and closes the door politely behind himself, wiping his feet on Zitao’s welcome mat as a sign of exquisite etiquette, the boy resumes his rightful place upon his barstool as he digs back into his congee and feeds himself another spoonful. Wrapped thickly in a comforter this size, Zitao has shielded himself from Kevin’s vision, both concealing the view of the masculine attributes that litter Zitao’s physicality, as well as the malnourished thinness to him that leaves him as visually fragile as a wooden rail. Maybe this way, Kevin will not be able to notice just what his best friend’s tight practice has done to Zitao’s body. 

“You can sit,” Zitao enunciates through a mouthful, and Kevin’s comfortable, platonic gaze meets his. His eyes hold no malintent, nor do they hold any deception to cause Zitao to feel as though he were in any kind of danger. In fact, he looks almost… lost. Or hurt, perhaps, and unsure of where to turn. “It’s only me here.”

Eyeing the chairs, Kevin nods and chooses to seat himself at one on the other side of the island edge, putting himself diagonal to Zitao. “I’m sorry if I was disturbing anything,” the man tells him politely, raising his hands amid his explanation as he eyes the bowl on Zitao’s island countertop sat cushioned upon a potholder, so as to not mar the gloss of the granite, “but I need to speak with you about Yifan.”

Far too fresh of a wound that it has not yet even had time to stop bleeding, Zitao’s gaze immediately shies away as his appetite threatens to disappear. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he tells him without meeting his eye. “And how do you know my real name, anyway?”

The very last thing he needs is to be scolded again for using Yifan the way he did and for lying to him the way he did; he _knows_ it was wrong, but Zitao wanted to try to find a pocket of opportunity to tell him the truth after he had crossed the threshold of intimacy. Had he tried to say anything earlier than when Yifan had fallen in love with him, Yifan would have surely thrown him right out of the firm and onto the street within mere seconds. Not having gotten that opportunity had not allotted him time to soften the blow, which means Yifan had to take the truth the hard way. 

“You might not have realized it before, but I’m very close with Yifan’s cabinet,” Kevin chuckles with a nod his head, then, as he rests his forearms upon the island, and it becomes clear that Zitao is not going to be given an opportunity to back out. “Look, I don’t know fully what happened between the two of you at work, but I wouldn’t be here trying to speak with you if it wasn’t important. He’s… shut down again.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Zitao does not know what _shut down_ means. “What do you mean?” He asks, swirling his spoon in the bowl and trying his best to pretend that he doesn’t give a shit about any of this. 

The man lets out a sigh through his nose, however, and it catches Zitao’s attention. Kevin doesn’t seem stressed-out, but rather, at a loss for what to do as the sigh rolls through him. Had Zitao been his last resort for something? “He shut down the company yesterday,” Kevin tells him, and Zitao’s heartbeat skips. “The models don’t normally come in on the weekends, so they wouldn’t have found out until tomorrow, but Yifan is always there on the weekends with Amber and his cabinet and his helpers, because they put out inventory on the weekends. Not a single one of them was there yesterday, and Yifan was at home locked away in his home office. That’s not _like_ him, Zitao - he’s my best friend, and he absolutely _loves_ what he does.”

It is shocking to hear that Yifan blindsided himself once again to care very little about the economic needs of his employees to trigger another complete shutdown, but at the same time, it is not shocking, for Zitao knew that something like this was likely to happen. Yifan fell for him similarly to the way he fell for his wife before she passed away, and if he had shut down his company over falling in love once, it would not prove surprising if he did it a second time. 

“So, he relapsed,” Zitao monotones, knowing exactly what the man is getting at, and it pains him deep down inside to know that he is the cause of Yifan’s unfortunate relapse, but, unfortunately, there was nothing that he could do to prevent it. To paraphrase - he knew that it was coming.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Kevin sighs, and Zitao can see the pain and the sorrow etched into his eyes, as his beloved best friend self-destructs from the inside-out. “I know you’ve been already told this, but this is what happened when we lost Mochou, and I don’t want to watch Yifan destroy himself again the way he did back then. I almost lost him, too.”

The words stab him right through the middle of his chest like serrated metal, his heart lurching in his chest at the thought of someone he loves more than anything falling victim to suicidal tendencies just like him. “Did he…?” 

A scratch at the back of his head, a set of eyes glancing away. “Once. He tried to drink himself into a coma. He’s not… he’s not violent in _that_ way.”

It stings so much to know that Yifan might, if he has not already, relapse back into his suicidal fog, but the blow is at least cushioned by the knowledge that Zitao does not have to picture in his mind a portrait of Yifan as his dreary, lifeless eyes stare up at a fresh noose, as he eyes the rows of knives sat in his kitchen knife block that he could possibly utilize. Imagining such a thing would only cause Zitao to go into an attack. “I’m sorry,” he offers kindly, for he knows how it feels to be so afraid that someone you love could slip through your fingers at any given moment. 

Nevertheless, Kevin waves it off. “It’s in the past,” he says. “Besides, that isn’t what I came over to talk to you about. I want to know what happened between you and Yifan after that banquet, and what happened yesterday. I couldn’t get anything out of him other than what Jinah and Yixing were able to tell me, but I know you to be quite the honest person.”

“I never meant to hurt him,” is what Zitao responds with, whether Kevin is already aware of that fact or not. When Kevin does not interrupt him again and, instead, grants him space to continue speaking, he sighs and stares down at his bowl. “I took this job to save my mother’s life,” he admits gently. “I’m a post-Associate’s drop-out with nothing going for him other than a photography degree, so trying to find any kind of livable wage was practically _impossible_ since I have no other viable degrees to help boost my salary. When I saw the job ad, though, well - I knew I _had_ to, because where was I going to find something else that would pay the amount that I needed for my mother’s chemotherapy? Cancer is expensive as fuck and tiring as all hell, and nobody tells you that,” he spits out sadly, as tears threaten to bubble to the surface. 

“I’m so sorry, Ying - Zitao,” Kevin corrects himself.

Shaking his head, Zitao continues. “Then I started to… _like_ him,” he shrugs, stirring the congee with an impartial air as though he were discussing difficult math problems, “and, knowing what I knew, I just wanted to make him happy, you know? I know that I lied to him, but I had no choice or my mother would have _died_. I thought, maybe if I could get him to like me enough, then he wouldn’t be so angry when I had to tell him the truth, but I didn’t get time for that. If I could have been honest with him, believe me, I would have been, but I couldn’t find an opportunity to tell him the truth without getting abruptly fired.”

Kevin is quiet for an extended moment, simply soaking up all of the information before he exhales slowly. “I’m very sorry,” he repeats tenderly, as though expressing something depressing yet heartfelt to him. “I understand where you are coming from - believe me, I do. It is just that, do you not believe that Yifan would have likely suffered less if you had never become romantically involved with him in the first place?”

Frowning, Zitao ponders what he means. 

“Simply put,” the man starts back up, despite Zitao’s silence, as though it was permission for him to continue, “if you knew that both ignoring his feelings as well as joining a relationship with him, knowing how tender he is and how fragile his feelings are and how you would have to break his heart eventually _regardless_ \- would it not have hurt less to simply stay platonic?” 

Zitao knows that they should have stayed platonic, but he didn’t have the self-control to tell himself no. He fell victim to Yifan’s temptation and his sin and drank from the forbidden goblet of gluttonous wine, and now, everybody is aching and everybody is suffering. Softly, he pouts as his aura shrinks. “I couldn’t help it,” he whimpers. “I love him.”

As it becomes apparent, Kevin is a man who has, also, fallen in love before, as the look that he gives Zitao then, among the pity that swims in his gaze, is nothing but warm understanding. He is not mad at him, does not hold any hostility toward him for what he’s done to Yifan and what he’s put Yifan through, nor does he hold any ill intent to yell at him or throttle him for playing Yifan this way. “He loves you, too,” Kevin tells him softly, and Zitao glances up at him from beneath wet, glossy lashes. “I don’t know how to fix this, but I know that much is true. I’m very sorry that you had to become victim to his internalized homophobia - to be honest, I’m not even really sure why he holds any in the first place, but it’s not your fault.”

Zitao wishes that he could agree, if it were not for the fact that it feels a lot like his fault, but could there, perhaps, been signs all along of the man’s internalized homophobia? Why he only hires women, why he tends to lean toward a more feminine image aside from Amber, likely being that she is one of his close friends - were those all signs all along? “So, what now?” He finds himself asking quietly. Having cooled and begun to congeal, the congee has lost all attractiveness to him as he now pokes at it with his spoon, as though it were an alien lifeform. 

Sighing, Kevin shrugs with arms crossed. “I have to figure out a way to get Yifan to open up and tell me everything so that we can hopefully reach some kind of an impasse. I can’t promise you that he will take you back, though, but I will try because he does love you - I can see it in his eyes, and I’ve been seeing it since the banquet. I just don’t want to lose him.”

Pouting, the boy really wishes that he could do more to help, but he knows that Yifan would likely sooner throttle him and shove him through a plaster wall than accept any form of help from him. “Can I ask you something?” Zitao glances up at him, then, something that takes Kevin slightly off-guard as the conversation had been reaching a near close. 

“Sure,” Kevin offers kindly, a crooked grin teasing at the corners of his lips. “Anything.”

Is it right to ask for such a thing? Zitao knows that he has been given no true permission, nor does he have any given right to desire such a piece of fractal knowledge, but his heart is telling him to do exactly that. Isn’t that what everybody always said to do - listen to your heart, not your insecurities? Would that have him better-off toward trudging along the road of self-care, all while knowing that it would likely only agitate Yifan more if he knew?

Licking over his bottom lip in a careful swipe, Zitao really wishes he had more self-control when it came to temptation.

“Where is Mochou’s grave located?”

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

  
Stepping carefully over shattered glass and torn taffeta, left strewn in half-furled strips in the middle of a battle zone, he makes his way to the loveseat and heaves out a comfortable breath as he seats himself upon it. This ever-familiar setting has become something only of his dreams, a place which he does not recognize and something that feels brand-new as though he were stepping foot into a stranger’s home and as though he does not belong on any of the furniture. Still, this sofa still looks familiar and beneath his rear, it even feels familiar, too, which means that he has managed to find his way through the rubble to something that still feels like home. 

“Talk to me, big guy,” he says as he throws an arm over the back of the sofa. “Come on, it’ll make you feel better.”

Stubbornly, the man gives a weak, slow shake of his head as angry, reddened eyes stare off into the endless nothingness, gazing unseeingly. “I don’t want to,” he mumbles through cracked lips, blossoming with dried blood at the splits in the flesh where he’s bitten into himself. 

“That wasn’t one of the options given,” Kevin chuckles to himself. “You gotta open up to someone sometime, Yifan. You can’t keep shutting your company down like this whenever something goes wrong and leaving all of your workers without pay to return to.”

“Their leave is paid,” the man spits out weakly, not wanting to continue along this pathway of conversation. “They are receiving compensation.”

“Oh,” Kevin mumbles. “So you actually _did_ wisen up since last time - I’m impressed. That’s still not the point,” he states, for although his best friend is an extremely intelligent man, one of the wisest people that Kevin, himself, knows, he can still sometimes be a thick fucking prick, sometimes. What Yifan lacks in human empathy, he tries to make up for in charm and expertise, but Kevin has been trying for years upon years to get him to understand that those things are not interchangeable. “The point is that you can’t keep treating your employees like this, Yifan. They are people, too - real, live, _breathing_ people who suffer, just like you and just like me. You’re using them like they’re your puppets, like you can do whatever you want with them because you know that they can’t tell you any differently.”

“And what am I _supposed_ to do?” Yifan snaps at him, glaring at him with those sharp, worn-out eyes. He looks absolutely exhausted, perhaps cried-out beyond recognition, and completely frazzled, a set of dysfunctions that Kevin has not seen on him since Mochou died. “Just _pretend_ as though nothing fucking bothers me? As though I’m not in fucking _pain_?”

In slight dismay, Kevin shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you needing to learn to actually _speak_ to your employee body because all you’re doing is rousing them up and causing them to get frantic with your random shutdowns. If you were to actually speak to them and explain that you feel the need to step away temporarily for self-care, don’t you think they will be much more understanding and will not cause you as much stress? You need to understand that it’s okay to ask for help.”

“I don’t need help,” Yifan grunts as he looks away, as he looks at the mess he’s caused to his own once-beautifully pristine home, broken china scattered across his carpeting and used dishes beginning to pile with nasty, moistened food scraps clinging to their divots and rims. 

“Yes,” his best friend corrects him matter-of-factly, “you do. And to start, we need to talk about Zitao.”

Instantaneously, the man’s shoulders stiffen in a practically knee-jerk reaction, something Kevin could have anticipated from an entire mile away. Kevin had certainly had both his hunches and his doubts that Zitao were the one thing to weaken Yifan at any given moment, but to see it happen before his very own eyes is a completely different thing. It becomes obvious, then, as Yifan’s aura closes itself off from the conversation, that Zitao truly is his kryptonite. “I don’t want to talk about him,” the man hisses with rigid shoulders rising up protectively. 

“Bullshit,” Kevin laughs. “You talked about him _endlessly_ when he was Yingtao, so why is Zitao any different?”

It pains him to think about confessing to such a thing, for how is he supposed to explain that it’s difficult to sidestep your long-since solidified sexuality due to unexpected confusion? How is he supposed to put into words the fact that he cannot even stomach _talking_ about that employee without growing angry over the betrayal he’s brought upon everyone? Yifan had gone to extravagant lengths for him, pushing all of his pride aside to give them a try and even so much as warring with himself to such a thorough extent that he managed to convince himself that Mochou wouldn’t hate it. How could someone like him just take all of Yifan’s valiant efforts for granted, like that? 

“Look, I know it’s shitty, alright?” His best friend offers. “I know he lied to you, and I know he led you on, but you still love him, do you not?”

Narrow-eyed, Yifan shoots him a sideways glare. “He’s a boy.”

“And?” Kevin asks flatly, his expression twisted in the shadow of a grimace, for he would not normally clock his best friend as someone to be so loudly homophobic. “What does his gender have anything to do with your feelings for him? You know just as well as I do that love is the most unexpected illness to come down with in the entire world, and you, who struggled to find it twice in one lifetime, are going to just turn your nose up at it?” 

“What the fuck are you _talking_ about?” The man spits hatefully. “How can I fall in love with a boy when I’ve only ever fallen in love with women? If I wasn’t straight and I was like _that_ , don’t you think I would have shown signs of it before? How can you expect a man to just bypass his sexuality as if it means nothing when that’s his entire source of preference?”

“Because sexualities are arbitrary, Yifan,” his best friend clarifies, which causes the man’s jaw to tense as he glances away when he realizes that he has no true comeback that will not be, once more, refuted. “Sure, sexualities are great to slap onto intimate interest if they seem to fit us, but that’s all they are is simply words - humans are humans and we, as humans, fall in love with humans, even if they stumble out of the lines of our sexualities sometimes. And yes, you fell for who you knew to be a pretty woman, but you learned to fall for her personality, as well, did you not? Would Yingtao really fake her personality to such an extent where Zitao’s personality would be entirely opposite? And more importantly, Yifan - are you really going to reduce someone like Yingtao to their genitalia? That’s shallow, and that’s not like you.”

Oh, how he wishes that he could staple his ears shut, maybe superglue the lobes to the lip of the shells so he would never have to hear another word out of Kevin’s mouth, because his best friend is right, and he fucking _hates_ it. 

He had fallen in love with Mochou because of how colorful her appearance was, how striking she was and how starkly she stuck out like a sore thumb among a crowd. It was impossible for her to not catch your eye, to somehow miss her as you gazed over hundreds of thousands of people in an empty room. Wherein the world was bleak in tones of muddled indigo and stonewall grays, Mochou was fluorescent with passion and vivid with her little desires. Yifan hadn’t been able to help but be immediately drawn to her, wanting to know if her personality was just as colorful as her hair was and her clothing was, if her heart was just as brightly fuschia as her makeup always was. 

Then, after years of searching, he had fallen in love with Yingtao because of how colorful her _personality_ was, a woman of a typically-female appearance but with a heart of absolute gold, one who would do anything for the people that she loved. He had been attracted to her gumption and her lack of human fears, including her lack of restraint when it came to butting heads with Yifan. He had not found a single model, aside from those in his immediate friendship circle, who had been so unintimidated by him and were brazen enough to even stand up to him each and every time, as though his threats of expulsion were no more than empty words. He found that _ridiculously_ sexy, as enticing as the most delectable forbidden fruit, and craved more and more. 

But, still - that had been Yingtao who had swindled her way into his heart and had gripped his feelings in her pretty little hands; it had been Yingtao who captured his eye with her musculature and her shy confidence, and her… _masculine_ thickness.

He frowns and shoves the thought away, because if he would have been into well-built men, before, then why had none ever caught his eye?

“You need to think about what you want to do, Yifan,” Kevin sighs beside him, and Yifan feels the soft, tender brush of his friend’s hand across his upper back in an attempt to soothe him. “I know, it’s difficult and it’s probably confusing, but until you figure out what it is that you want to do, the two of you are only going to continue hurting. Regardless of gender, Zitao is still the exact same person you saw at work each and every day, beneath that costume. It may have been Yingtao’s appearance that you grew accustomed to, but it was still Zitao’s heart that you fell for.”

What does he want to do? Yifan doesn’t _know_ what he wants to do. 

Why can’t the universe just not be this complicated and actually give him something good for once? Was it not enough to take the love of his life away from him, traumatizing him forever - _endlessly_ , it seemed - and leaving him wrought with agony and frightened of ever falling in love again, out of fear that he would lose them, too? Was it not enough to threaten his mother’s life and her very own memory and leave him constantly and consistently stressed out that if he were to get behind on his hospital visits, his mother would forget all about him? Was it not enough to leave him with absolutely nobody to turn to with things like this, not a single family member left to confide in when he truly needs it? 

Sighing slowly, Yifan buries a trembling hand in his oily hair, in need of a very thorough shower despite not having been able to find the energy to even so much as move from the sofa, as the thoughts of everything that he has been through swarm him all at once in painful waves, threatening tears to the surface. “I want to be with Yingtao,” he states softly, weakly, for he does not know what to do about the anguish he feels. 

“Yingtao is not real,” Kevin tells him gently, struggling to not find exhaustion in his persuasion. “I can try to help the two of you get together, but in order to do that, you need to admit to yourself that this is Zitao that you have feelings for and not Yingtao. He _loves_ you, Yifan, and he would probably do anything to make you happy if it came down to it. I can help you, but I can’t do anything if you’re going to continue living in an illusion.”

It’s true, but at the same time, how could he have helped it? Yifan had been fooled by an illusion all along, persuaded into weakness and emotional captivity by a woman who does not actually exist, but how would he have known any better? Zitao still lied to him, nonetheless, and still lied to the entire world despite everything. He still led Yifan on and still tricked him into falling for an altered, opposite-gender version of himself under a false alias, so how is Yifan supposed to just _forget_ those illusioned memories? How is he supposed to just put it past him that he had been fooled so thoroughly when it was all the kid’s fault in the first place? 

Silently, a tortured little sniffle reaches Kevin’s ears, one that has his heart stopping dead in its tracks as his eyebrows furrow and his eyes widen. “Yifan?” He mutters beneath his breath, a sound so soft that if the entire building were not bathed in aching silence, nobody would have been able to hear it. 

He hadn’t realized how truly emotionally drained the man was until that very moment when Yifan’s dead gaze does not shy away, as though he were too out of energy to shield his pain any longer, and thick, glossy tears trail down the man’s cheeks as his chin and lips begin to tremble. 

The sight shoots bolts of shock through him, laced loosely with fear and pure terror because he cannot remember the last time Yifan cried in front of him - if _ever_. “Hey,” he attempts to chuckle to try and clear the rapidly-dampening air around them. “You’re scaring me - stop that.”

Silently, Yifan’s broad body begins to shake beside him, his chest heaving beneath the loose pull of his sleep shirt, and Kevin’s heartbeat practically screeches to a stop altogether. “Why does this always happen to me?” The man beside him - the president of his _own_ company, one he had built entirely from the ground up all by himself at the naive, fresh age of eighteen - croaks out as sobs begin to threaten their way into his voice, a sound so heartbreaking that Kevin’s blood runs absolutely cold. “Why does this… keep happening? What is so _wrong_ with me?”

_Nothing_ , he wishes he could say, wishes that he could convince his best friend otherwise that nothing is truly wrong with him other than his stubborn inhibitions, for the world is too cruel to good people, sometimes, and nothing Kevin could do or say would change that fact. Without thinking, he lurches forward and wraps lanky arms around the wide shoulders of his long-time best friend, the man who stood his ground for years when people told him he would never make it, he would never find happiness or success, would never thrive. “I’m so sorry,” he confesses in despair to the man so hated and targeted by the evils of the universe, the man with a fragile, untempered heart of glass. 

When Yifan crumbles apart in his arms and grapples at what little happiness he actually holds left inside his fractured heart, sudden death and the eternal sweet relief of all pain seems very enticing, right now, and would finally put him out of all of his misery. If this is what living is going to continue feeling like, should he even continue giving an attempt at it, at all?

“I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t want to hear it, because he wishes that he could apologize to himself, too, and ten times over.

 


End file.
